Ajalaa Claussen (Photo courtesy of ALCS Staff)Silver City, NM: Ajalaa Claussen and Katrina Estrada have been named by the New Mexico Community Foundation as the 2020 recipients of the Aldo Leopold Charter School's Ella, Michael, and Ella Memorial Scholarship. Aji Classen was awarded $2,000 and Katrina Estrada was awarded $500.
The Ella, Michael, Ella Memorial Scholarship was established in 2015 in loving honor and memory of the Aldo Leopold Charter School students Ella Kirk, Michael Mahl and Ella Myers who lost their lives in an airplane accident in May of 2014.
Katrina Estrada (Photo courtesy of ALCS Staff)Their dedication to environmental studies, music and the arts, and their level of community involvement and civic engagement, serves as an inspiration to all.
Aji Claussen was born Silver City, New Mexico and grew up in an intentional community in the Mimbres Valley where her family raised chickens and cultivated a small farm. As a child she loved sharing their bountiful harvests with the neighbors and rode her bike door-to-door delivering fresh lettuce and eggs to fellow ranch members who helped raise her. "They truly brought meaning to the phrase it takes a village" Aji says. As a community-oriented person, she naturally gravitated to Aldo Leopold Charter School, where she received a remarkable experiential education that sparked her interest in political science and media. Aji will be attending the University of Southern California this fall to pursue a degree in political science and explore Los Angeles, the media capital of the world. Aji states, "I am beyond grateful to receive the Ella, Michael, Ella Scholarship, for it provides me the opportunity to explore my passions and see how I may be of service to our global community." Aji continues, "Since the sixth grade, Ella, Michael, and Ella have always been and will forever be some of my biggest role models."
Katrina Estrada says, "It is important to accept the accomplishments in your life, little or big it does not matter. I am a second-generation American with plenty of hopes, dreams, and aspirations." Katrina is proud to say that she is one of the people to receive the Ella, Michael, Ella Scholarship. She plans to go to the University of New Mexico come this fall semester, where she will study film and digital arts, along with the many other fields of interests she has. Katrina has grown up knowing that she would have to work hard to achieve her goals in life. She states, "It is needless to say that I will significantly benefit from this scholarship. Just as I have worked hard to be where I am in life, I will continue to work just as hard, if not harder." She hopes that this small, yet very significant success in her life will act as an example to the youth in our community, that if you work hard, take risks, and stay true to your interests, that you will always be right where you need to be in life.
This Memorial Scholarship Fund helps to continue to keep Ella, Michael and Ella in all our hearts and minds by providing other Aldo Leopold Charter School students the opportunity to reach their own potential in the manner we so admired in each of these three students.
The mission of the Ella, Michael, Ella Memorial Scholarship is to inspire young people to follow their passion for the environment, the arts, music, and community involvement and to support them as they begin their post-secondary studies. Since 2015 the Scholarship fund has awarded $15,500 to twelve recipients.
The New Mexico Community Foundation is the entity that manages the Scholarship Fund and the selection process. Awards are made each year. To be eligible for the scholarship, students must have a 3.0-grade average or higher, be a graduating senior from Aldo Leopold High School the year that the scholarship is gifted, and have plans to enroll in a full time accredited program. To help support this scholarship, donations can be made to the fund directly to the New Mexico Community Foundation or to Aldo Leopold Charter School.
Aldo Leopold Charter School is a tuition-free public charter school that provides an engaging and challenging educational program for grades 6 through 12 emphasizing direct experience, inquiry learning, stimulation of the creative process, and stewardship of our community and natural environment.