Three UWC-USA alumni received Gateway Scholarships from the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) for last-minute course openings.
Recipients were:
- Cristian Mendoza Gomez ’19, USA-Calif., for the Wilderness First Responder Program in San Francisco
- Max Saylor ’14, USA-Vermont, for the North Cascades Mountaineering Prime in Washington
- Talia Augustidis, ’18, United Kingdom, for the Whitewater River Expedition in Utah
The scholarships are worth a total of $9,115.
“We are super excited for UWC-USA’s relationship with NOLS to continue to grow,” said Anders Fristedt, co-director of the wilderness program at UWC-USA. “What started as two scholarships a year has now grown to seven for the summer of 2019.”
NOLS is non-profit dedicated to teaching environmental ethics, technical outdoors skills, wilderness medicine, risk management and judgment, and leadership on extended wilderness expeditions and in classrooms. NOLS partners with organizations like UWC-USA through its Gateway Partner Program to engage exceptional youth in expeditions.
Mendoza, who finished the first responder course his week, said he was extremely excited to receive the scholarship.
“Thanks to the wilderness program at UWC-USA, I have fallen in love with backpacking and can continue to work in this field with a WFR certification,” he said. “The course has been extremely educational, fun, and an experience I will carry with me forever.”
Mendoza will continue his education at American University in Washington, D.C., on full-merit-based scholarship worth $260,000 over four years.
Additional recipients for 2019 were Evan Myers ‘20, USA-Oregon, for rock climbing; and Ekaterina Tsavalyuk ‘20, Russia, Valentina Cuellar Rodriguez ’19, Colombia, and Kyra Geissler ’19, USA-Ill., all Alaska backpacking and sea kayaking.