Guest Blogger: 'Art of Thanksgiving' (Callie Herd)

As we prepare for the Thanksgiving holiday, I wanted to take the time to promote my blog, Planning and Preparing for College (Scholarships, Internships, Etc) with you. It is my hope that you would take the time to share with others and bless as many students/parents that you can.

I have found out during the years that "it is you that determines how far you can or can't go." We must stop allowing others to limit us on what we want to do in life. One of my favorite motto is: "Your vision is not my vision and just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it won't manifest."

I had the pleasure of advising a young man from the "Class of 2008" who had barely graduated with almost a 2.0, but still had the desire to attend college. The young man had also never taken the ACT or applied for college. I went into my speech that "if he believes in himself and have faith that anything is possible." The young man told me his goal was to attend college, but he felt that his current grades and not taking the ACT would make that an impossible dream. I advised him on what he needed to do in order to prepare for the ACT exam. Last month, I received a call from him and he told me he scored a "21". He was very enlightened and couldn't believe that he scored so high. The young man plans on attending college this January '09.

My challenge to you, the "Class of 2009" and current college students is that you create a plan when applying for scholarships that would allow you the best opportunities to obtain one. For instead the Sam Walton Community Service college would be a great programming project and could be the base for future scholarship formats. You see this particular scholarship is nation-wide and for every Walmart, Sam's and Walmart Neighborhood Store their will be a recipient of the scholarships. The value of the scholarship is $3,000.

Just think if you could devise a way to have a layout of the impacted stores, store numbers, average income for the area, how many schools are within the range of the store(s) and then assign a student per store for that area. This would provide statistical data that would allow the odds of them receiving a scholarship to be higher. The previous sentence is just a few requirements needed, but you will have to plot in the rest. In the end, planning how to apply and select a scholarships is the biggest thing to conquer.

In 2004 both my daughter and friend's daughter were recipient of the scholarship because they had a plan along with the requirements needed in order to receive the scholarships. So in the end, "life's challenges goes to the man who thinks he can."