SBCC Students Awarded Textbook Scholarships

Nowadays, the cost of college textbooks per semester can reach up to $900, a steep price to pay in addition to yearly tuition costs. The Friends of the Luria Library, a support group of the SBCC library, understands the heavy burden students carry in trying to purchase textbooks, and so it helped 21 students by awarding a total of $10,500 that will go toward buying textbooks this semester, giving each student $500. The application pool started off with approximately 50 candidates who were required to write two essays that answered the following questions: What does the Luria Library mean to you, and what is your financial situation and why do you need this scholarship?

Library supporters, headed by Kandy Luria, held a luncheon at SBCC on February 10 to honor the winners for receiving the book scholarships. “Everyone is welcome to apply [and] this year we had really good applications, so it was hard to pick,” Luria said. The winners were chosen based on the applicants’ answers. “We got awarded the [prize] at the beginning of the semester. I’d actually bought all the books that I need, which came like a shade under $500, so it worked out perfect,” said Dan Nelson, a Journalism major at SBCC. For other students like Sarah Tajima, a Linguistics major at the college, the scholarship became a way for her to help her family cut down on expenses. “It meant a lot to be able to call my mom in Hawaii and tell her that she didn’t have to worry, I got this,” Tajima said.

The Friends of the Luria Library has been giving out donations for almost 15 years now and according to Luria, the more members they get to join in the Friends of the Luria Library council, the more chances they will get to award more scholarships to the students. Claudia Lapin, a scholarship donor who recently joined the council and values the importance of helping out college students, said, “We all have invested economic interest in [students’] success and it’s foolish to imagine that the state will take care of it. It’s our responsibility to take care of it and we’re going to do that and we’re going to keep vibrant.”

To join the Friends of the Luria Library, please contact Donna Cobb at cobb@sbcc.edu.