Colin Fendley Receives GCA Scholarship Award
Published on 7/6/2024
Greenbriar Civic Association President Rebecca Gotwalt presented Colin Fendley with this year’s $2,500 scholarship award during the GCA Annual Meeting at the Cale Community Center on June 4, 2024. When presenting the award, Rebecca noted how impressed she was with Colin’s volunteer and extracurricular activities, while maintaining a 3.78 GPA and working as a part-time cashier at the Greenbriar Giant over the past year.
Colin, a graduate of Chantilly High School, will pursue a degree in computer engineering at George Mason University in the fall. His extracurricular activities included serving two years on the editorial staff of the CHS literary magazine, Andromeda, which is printed and distributed annually with the school yearbook. As a member of the editorial staff, Colin helped select the original poems, stories and artwork submitted by CHS students and helped design page layouts for the final draft. As a member of the Tri-M Music Honor Society for three years, Colin helped raise funds for the music department and supported and promoted local musicians of all ages and talents. He volunteered as a stagehand for several music department performances, attended performances of various CHS music ensembles and the City of Fairfax Band, and participated as a musician at the biannual Tri-M Coffeehouse. As a member of the National Honor Society for three years, Colin participated in several donation drives, collecting canned foods, new toys and clothes, and used books. He also fulfilled the NHS volunteer requirements by serving as a teacher’s aide for his church’s Vacation Bible School in the summer of 2023.
Colin’s volunteer activities included participating in WorkCamp programs through his church in the summers of 2021 and 2022, working with adult and teen volunteers to provide free home improvements for low-income homeowners.
Colin says he hopes to use his computer engineering degree to help others, “I’ve heard that some people with autism respond well to music, even if they don’t respond to speech or other sounds. Since I am also a musician, perhaps I can use my knowledge of music and what I learn through the study of computer engineering to create a program or app to help neurodivergent people communicate. Ultimately, [I hope] to use my degree to help solve current and future problems, one person at a time.”
A worthy goal indeed!