2022 Scholarship Winners
The Vegetarian Resource Group Awarded $30,000 in 2022 College Scholarships
Callie Showalter—Washington $10,000
Callie went vegan at age 12 after watching a documentary. During high school, she led several climate strikes, where she detailed the ways that going vegetarian or vegan can mitigate climate change. Callie invited two local veggie food trucks to be at the rally, as well as setting up a vegan information stand. She also gave a speech at an animal rights rally and did events for the Northwest Animal Rights Network.
As a local vegan food truck volunteer, Callie helped prepare food, experimented with new products, and marketed the food truck online. She volunteered at a community meals program as a floor manager recruiting new volunteers, managing the making and serving of food, and personally baking vegan desserts each month from freshman through senior year.
"It was a huge challenge to get my school to implement vegan cafeteria meals, primarily because adding new foods was more expensive for them... and (I was) told the school would likely not add new options because not enough students were vegetarian... I asked for the help of my school's environmental club to create a petition to show the school how important vegetarian meals are for the students. We got almost 260 student and staff signatures... which was enough to show the school that we needed vegetarian options," she said.
"The implementation of vegan options required getting up to the district level, because the superintendent and district staff have most of the control over all of the decisions made in the district, including cafeteria food. The vegan options added have included: a daily salad bar, daily rotation of a vegan soup or chili, vegan pasta options, and usually a grain/rice bowl including veggies and tofu. These have all worked well, and students seem to love them. I have tried them all and I like them a lot, especially the chili. These options are still being served in the high schools as of now, and the middle/elementary schools also continue their vegan options—which are slightly more limited than the high schools—such as vegan pastas and sandwiches."
Callie's school reference said she does all the above, in addition to working at a local supermarket and taking AP courses. Callie said her "plan is to get my bachelor's degree in environmental science... My goal is to improve U.S. policy in order to improve our treatment of animals, including eliminating the modern factory-farming system." Callie will attend Smith College.
Ananya Iyengar—Utah $5,000
Ananya was raised in a vegetarian family and became vegan at the age of six. She and her brother began a club called Save Our Earth, which was dedicated to protecting animal rights and human rights. One of her references said she started volunteering for the Utah Animal Rights Coalition (UARC) when she was 12 years old, and each year had been an integral, regular, and reliable volunteer for their annual VegFest.
When she was 14, Ananya spoke at VegFest on a panel comprised of vegan kids. She also helped spread the word about the event by doing promotional interviews with the media. In 2021 she volunteered at the UARC festival booth, juggling the tasks of serving prepared food, selling merchandise, accepting donations, and responding to problems.
Ananya has volunteered for a program feeding the homeless since 2016, and has helped cook vegan meals for homeless youth. Though not formally in charge because of age and liability, she has planned menus, purchased ingredients, and helped oversee activities.
Ananya is also a triathlete. When she participated in overnight camps for this community, she pushed administrators in charge to ensure that they provide nutritious vegan meals as an option. In addition, she joined in a live broadcast with Globeracers, an India-based platform for runners and athletes, where she talked about being a vegan athlete. When Ananya first started competing, she and her brother were the only vegans. They encouraged and inspired other athletes to eliminate meat from their diets. She said people are beginning to realize that one can compete at the elite level without consuming animal protein.
Ananya's future goal is to help us find ways to inhabit other planets by studying astro-biology and data sciences, to continue to fight for the planet we currently have, and also to continue to be a voice for the animals. She believes it is important for those who believe in animal rights to be present in this emerging field to encourage an ethical worldview, which centers the importance of sentience and kindness towards beings not like us. Ananya will attend the University of Utah majoring in data science and biology.
Laila Jeffries-El—New Jersey $5,000
With some stops and starts, Laila started her process towards becoming vegetarian in seventh grade.
Laila was in the Culinary Academy at her high school. She brought up the idea to her chef that they make vegetarian recipes at least once a week and worked towards creating an alternative curriculum for students who wish to pursue a plant-based pathway. As a result of her efforts, the instructor chef has adopted more vegan-friendly practices. For example, instead of having students in his class cook chicken wings, students are assigned to prepare buffalo cauliflower bites. Steak skewers were swapped for mushroom skewers with a vegan bordelaise sauce after Laila suggested this in her sophomore year.
In her junior year of high school, she helped to establish a new club called Sprouting Change, which had numerous campaigns around food justice, animal rights, and sustainability.
As a co-captain of her school's ProStart team, Laila competed in the New Jersey Restaurant and Hospitality Association statewide high school competition, where they presented a business plan to industry professionals. She suggested they make the menu completely vegan and developed a Filipino restaurant concept with menu items, marketing tactics, a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis, interior dér elements, kitchen layout, and a mock floor plan. Menu items included shiitake mushroom steamed buns, green papaya salad, a peanut stew called kare-kare, and ube donuts for dessert.
"We aim to serve traditional Filipino food, while fostering sustainable practices in doing so..." she wrote. "We are choosing to opt out of supporting meat production. By providing alternatives to meat and other animal products, we seek to help customers realize that food can be delicious while helping to reduce the carbon footprint." Her team took second prize in the contest.
Laila wants to continue "fighting for justice in my community. I hope that we will make improvements in the future generations in regard to racial equality... I plan to pursue business and economics in college. I will continue to educate myself on the inner workings of monetary policy and finance, and how I can use these skills to inform others. I would love to be in a world where we no longer have to worry about global warming... I strive to promote the benefits of a vegetarian lifestyle to a broader community." Laila will be attending Howard University in Washington D.C.
Sicile Naddeo-Gjergji—New York $5,000
Sicile wanted to become a vegetarian in second grade when she realized chicken was "a chicken." Not being in a vegetarian family, she eventually became vegetarian on her own around sixth grade, and now has been vegan about four years.
"I have worked to bring veganism to the world around me, through both community service and my curricular commitments at school," she said. In Brooklyn she volunteered at Community Solidarity, which distributes vegetarian produce and vegetarian meals to those in need. For her senior school project, she examined the accessibility of veganism for those with limited economic means. She compiled a cookbook with meals and servings sizes for families on a fully SNAP budget, so that individuals limited to EBT funds (food stamps) could afford these recipes.
"I made sure all of my recipes were relatively easy and didn't require large time commitments, whether it be for the cooking itself or just for the finding/purchasing of ingredients. Lastly, I also made sure to develop meals that are nutritious and have many of the nutrients that can go lacking in the diets of first-time vegans, such as iron and calcium," Sicile said.
Sicile did the cooking and photography herself and you can see the 91 pages of beautifully illustrated recipes at www.docs.google.com/document/d/1V8p5S5c7WFH27GhGnCko39UiNWLqie1T/edit
In college, Sicile plans to study the intersection of political science and ethics, which includes food justice and the way we can achieve it for everyone. She will be attending Princeton.
Manuel Cortes Romero—New York $5,000
The smell of chuleta (pork chops) filled my small New York City apartment. Every morning, I would wake up to my mom flipping tortillas on our black rusty stove. This would bring me back to my birth country, Honduras," Manuel wrote. "Before my mom brought me to the United States, I lived in a Honduras sea coast town where Mother Nature was prevalent around me. When I moved to Queens, New York, I felt like I was in limbo. NYC will always be my city, but I felt my connection with nature was limited. My body felt like it was covered in chains and I could only stretch so far. My mom would tell me that when I was young, I would play with baby chicks and jump on dogs. Although I had a more intimate connection with nature back in Honduras, I wasn't going to let my urban environment limit my passion.
For me, the quickest and easiest way to feel a bond with Mother Nature was to change my eating habits. I personally felt eating a carcass wasn't very appetizing. This was conflicting at the time because I also didn't want to have the culture disconnect since a lot of the foods from my country incorporated different types of meat. One night I truly thought about this new lifestyle I wanted to convert to. I realized that my favorite cultural foods were already vegetarian: sopa de frijoles, baleada, etc. I was finally able to begin this new way of life."
Manuel created a club in high school to promote vegetarianism. He wrote a newsletter that included a vegetarian recipe and information about environmental issues.
In addition, he promoted vegetarianism through the school Model Congress Debate Club. A reference wrote that in one debate, "He ended by saying that "What makes my life more valuable than those birds?' I can't say he turned the room into vegetarians, but what I can say is he left the room questioning why humans are superior and other species are inferior. I began thinking to myself, "Why do humans get a pass on taking life away?' Anytime I ask for help at our food pantry, Manny is the first person to help unload hundreds of heavy boxes filled with fruits and vegetables for our community. He is the type of person who takes action rather than complaining about his problems, and is extremely eager to help others."
Manuel wrote, "Veganism to me is giving an animal another chance at life... This scholarship will give me the opportunity to change the life of my family. I will have the chance to walk down an American college campus, something my ancestors would kill for. Of course, I don't mean to actually kill as that would be counterintuitive to my lifestyle. Being vegan to me is synonymous with humility and humbleness, and knowing that we aren't superior to other species..."
Manuel is enrolled at Cornell for animal science, is participating in the Cornell Speech and Debate team, and will be doing an informative speech on vegetarianism for the next semester. He plans on going to graduate school to receive a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine license and PhD.
Support VRG Scholars!
To send support for additional scholarships and internships, donate at vrg.org/donate, call (410) 366-8343, or send a donation to VRG, P.O. Box 1463, Baltimore, MD 21203.
Do you know an amazing vegan or vegetarian high school student?
Please tell them about our annual scholarship contest! The deadline for the next VRG scholarship contest for high school seniors graduating in 2023 is February 20, 2023. To see scholarship rules and past winners, visit www.vrg.org/student/scholar.htm
