Meet our deserving winners and read their bios
= multi-year scholarships awarded
2020 Winners
Ambar will graduate from Winter Haven High School with a 3.932 GPA, working 20 hours/week at Chick-fil-A and playing varsity women's volleyball. She is planning to attend Eckerd College and major in marine biology. After graduation, she hopes to study abroad on various sea excursions and join the global network of marine mammologists. Ambar wishes to receive a pathology veterinary internship while earning a Masters degree in Marine Mammal Medicine. She would eventually like become an animal care specialist at The Marine Mammal Center Hawaii Hospital, Ke Kai Ola, HA.
Ambar was a co-founder of the Environmental Club at Winter Haven High School, leading a zero-waste campaign. She was captain of women's volleyball team, winning District Championship her junior year and second her senior year.
Amber spent countless community service hours managing “Meal on Wheels” deliveries and lead dog training courses as an experienced volunteer at the Humane Society of Polk County.
Jonathon will graduate from Haines City High School with a 3.775 GPA. He was captain of their golf team his senior year. He has completed 18 credit hours at Polk State College as a dual enrollment student, earning a 3.8 GPA at the collegiate level. He has been working as an employee at the Country Club of Winter Haven as lead assistant in the Golf Cart Barn. He also leads 2 different tutor classes for Pre-calculus and Introduction to Chemistry as a student volunteer. Jonathon will be attending Florida Polytechnic University in the Fall and would like to graduate with a degree in computer engineering with a concentration in computer game design. From here, he would like to join a multi-national company and work at the design of gaming software that is more user-friendly as well as challenging to multiple skill level of players. As an aside, Jonathon would very much like to help enhance the current pharmaceutical technology that is in place for Type I Diabetes. He feels the treatment field is constantly growing and improving and he would like to be a part of that change and growth. He will be working in the future on that lifetime dream!
Thirteen years ago, his life changed before it really began. He was 5 years old, and was just beginning his educational journey at Bethune Academy in Haines City, FL. He was diagnosed with Type I Diabetes at Arnold Palmer Hospital in Orlando, FL after an unforeseen diabetic episode in kindergarten. He missed almost 30 days of school, while his doctors tried to get his endocrine system functioning correctly and was held back to repeat kindergarten. His memories of early elementary school are full of difficult situations and trying to understand what his insulin shots were about. In 5th grade, he lost his beloved godmother, Coach Robin "Nana Peanut" Wagman, after her 5 year battle with cancer. Her passing negatively affected his family and many local town residents. Jonathon’s mother, Coach Gables and his godmother, Coach Wagman headed-up the HCHS WVB Program for 10 years. His second great loss was his favorite physical education teacher who died during his 7th grade. He was devastated because he really admired this teacher. Having diabetes almost seemed easier than having to deal with death of 2 loving mentors. It just seemed so unfair to lose people that he loved, especially in a short period of time. These life challenges were instructive when he began to play golf his freshman year. He never thought to much about golf but needed physical activity beyond P.E. in his life.
Walking in the Florida heat was a real eye opener for Jonathon. The 80-to-90-degree heat plus the 40 pounds of clubs he had to carry on his back, caused his blood glucose levels to go out of wack every day. He had to carry extra water, Gatorade and snacks to every practice and match. Golf is a difficult game to begin with, but certainly more challenging when you have an unpredictable disease, such as Type I Diabetes. He has been through a lot, fortunate to be healthy, while he sometimes struggles as a diabetic, he knows that he is a huge winner! Jonathon is strong because he has witnessed deaths and an incurable disease and is graduating this May 2020 as an honor student-athlete with dreams of being a very successful businessman.
Good luck, Jonathon!
Crishawn will graduate from Haines City High School with a 3.7 GPA after also captaining the soccer team his junior and senior years. He is planning to attend Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and earn his B.S. in meteorology. He then hopes to gain his Masters in Environmental Meteorological Sciences. He wants to acquire a job in meteorology where he can tour the world and research different aspects of the Earth’s environment and explore and experience the world from a different perspective. This would allow real world research by being able to adapt to different obstacles presented in unfamiliar environments. Once Crishawn has completed his research of exotic environments on Earth, he would like to write a book about his experiences and findings. He was elected to Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society and completed over 120 community service hours in Haines City.
At 7 years old, Crishawn witnessed his father being murdered by police officers in his native country of Jamaica. This tragedy was very difficult to cope with. With his very strong mother by his side, it became easier to cope and heal. Although his death was the most impactful event in his life, it was not the defining moment. Soon after his father’s burial, his mother, Crishawn and sister left their home country behind and moved to the United States of America. Leaving Jamaica to pursue a better life in the U.S.A. was what they needed to do to keep their dreams alive. Jamaica is always going to be what his heart calls home, but he wanted to have a better future and his defining moment was immigrating here. Moving to a new country gave Crishawn a new environment to refocus and work hard. With everything being so different, he was not able to get complacent. He was always learning and working because he had to adjust to his new country. Crishawn’s future was not in Jamaica, but in the United States! The immigration risk has been very rewarding, and he has been able to envision the man he wanted to become and is working towards it. Instead of worrying about his next meal, he was able to focus on working hard to make it to his dream of attending college.
His father always preached “Always be a leader, never be a follower.” This quote is branded in his mind, and he lives it every day. His soccer teammates look to him for leadership and setting high standards. He is the first one to practice and to their games and the last to leave. Teamwork makes the dream work. Crishawn’s mother has supported him with love and encouragement throughout the whole journey. He tries to repay her everyday by going to school and working hard to get good grades and performing well on the soccer pitch. Good luck, Crishawn!
Simon will be graduating with a 3.8 GPA and was the co-captain of the tennis team his junior and senior years. He is planning to attend Polk State College for two years and transfer to University of South Florida, where he will major in business finance. Simon intends to pursue a career in real estate and own a real estate agency. He was voted Treasurer of the LWHS Hispanic Culture Club for 2018-2019. His junior and senior year, he was school yearbook sports photographer.
In December of 2014, Simon’s father, and the family’s main source of income, unexpectedly suffered a severe stroke, causing permanent unemployed. He now requires the use of a walker. May 2015, he was diagnosed with Type II Diabetes and suffered another stroke in August 2015 when he was 56. Simon was only thirteen at the time. He suffered from mental and emotional adversity because his family experienced a huge economic downfall. Times became financially rough! He, his older brother, and sister have worked hard to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table with their jobs. Their mother is a housewife, who is also the primary caretaker of his dependent father.
In ninth grade, Simon joined the tennis team as a novice and failed to earn a spot in the starting lineup, due to the high level of competition from his teammates. There were many times when he just wanted to quit! A senior player convinced him to remain on team. Hours of practicing and conditioning on his own for at least six hours per week, earned Simon a spot in the starting lineup the next 3 years.
He got the opportunity to participate in the county and district tournament for the first time as a sophomore, where he individually placed second runner up at county and first place at districts, both in the number five singles round, and was named the 2018 Most Improved Male Tennis Player at the post-season awards banquet. The 2018 LWHS tennis season was one of the most successful seasons ever by having only one loss, for the first time in many years. Lake Wales claimed both county and district first place championship titles and advanced to the regional finals. Simon made a huge contribution to the success of this outstanding season. His tennis experience made him realize that he should never doubt his ability to be successful at something new and never give up when a challenge seems to be too difficult and never allow negative comments to lower his self-esteem. Good luck, Simon!
Czerise will graduate from Lake Gibson High School with a 4.4 GPA while at the same time working at Urban Air in Lakeland. She had the privilege of serving as Student Body President her junior and senior years. She was captain of the LGHS cheerleading squad and co-captain of the track & field team. Her senior year she won district champion high jumper. Czerise an active member in NHS, NAACP and was also involved in FCCLA, where she competed on the national level in California and Washington, D.C. She is an advocate for the empowerment of her community, which has enabled her to accumulate 1,500 community service hours. She is planning to attend Florida Atlantic University this Fall and majoring in international marketing. Her first career goal is to become a marketing manager for an international airline. Her ultimate career goal is to become a CEO of her own global marketing agency. She has chosen this profession because of her current work situation in Lakeland and her passion for air travel and her good communication skills.
Czerise was elected vice president of the Lakeland Police Athletic League Youth Leadership Program where she mentors elementary and middle school students on good decision making by promoting the programs slogan "Filling playgrounds, not prisons." As vice president she was fortunate enough to attend the annual Youth Directors Conferences at Disney World in Orlando, Florida for four consecutive years.
She takes pride in continuously exercising her leadership and guidance skills daily at school and in the community with classmates and teammates. After school, at her home, she also mentors classmates on how to apply to colleges. Czerise’s oldest brother, Danny-Jerome (DJ) Villiers is her biggest role model. He has filled the voids in many different aspects of her life, from being an older brother to even being a father figure at times. Her parents divorced when she was 8 years old. Leaving her mother, three brothers and Czerise to operate the household on their own. Brother DJ took charge of the family during this complicated time. Months later her sweet grandmother passed from a long-term illness. Having newly divorced parents along with losing a cherished grandmother clearly affected her adversely at a young age. She looked up to brother DJ as a life mentor. In November of her sophomore year, her brother, DJ was killed in an automobile accident. This shattered her heart to pieces and, of course, it took a long time to work out of this depression. Reminiscing on DJ’s life, she remembered everything he taught her, and realized she couldn't just give up. Academics and high jumping became her new outlet to keep his memory and legacy alive in her mind and in reality. She practiced high jump for 2 hours every day during her sophomore and junior seasons and gradually increased the bar height until she was ranked 6th within her district, while winning 1st place in most every meet. At times, balancing academics, sports, extracurricular activities, work, and a personal life seemed impossible. However, refusing to be contained by a generic subset, Czerise breaks boundaries and excels past the norms of others, while shaping her into the woman she is today and the woman she will become in the future. Good luck, Czerise!
