USACFA Accepting Applications for Scholarships in Arts, Other Fields

The United States Adult CF Association (USACFA) is accepting applications to award a total of $15,000 in scholarships to four people with cystic fibrosis (CF)pursuing degrees in the creative arts and other fields.

Two of the scholarships — worth $5,000 each — are part of the USACFA’s Scholarship for the Arts program, created to help deserving students with CF to pursue a degree in arts education. Relevant fields include the fine arts, design, music, dance, theater, photography, filmmaking, creative writing, and poetry.

Anyone with a minimum GPA of 3.0 seeking a degree, from an associate up to a doctoral degree, in the creative arts can apply. Applications are due by April 1, details are given below and can be found on the scholarship’s webpage.

This scholarship was created in the memory of Helen M. Eisenman, a photographer, writer, and editor who was devoted to her daughter, Andrea, who has CF. Eisenman was also the proofreader for the CF Roundtable, the USACFA’s website.

A Holocaust survivor, Eisenman and her parents moved to New York in 1940, where she worked as a subtitle writer for foreign (non-English) films. She later earned a master’s degree in new media studies, focusing on another of her passions, photography.

Andrea went into a career as a graphic designer with a minor in silkscreen printing. She currently volunteers her time to help the USACFA and CF Roundtable.

The other two scholarships, each worth up to $2,500, are part of USACFA’s Higher Education Scholarship program and awarded to adults with CF pursuing career certifications or associate, bachelor, and graduate degrees.

Given every summer for the upcoming school calendar year, this scholarship is named after Lauren Melissa Kelly, a University of Georgia student who was an active member of her school community before dying of CF in 1992, her senior university year.

In recognition of her academic achievements, Kelly was awarded posthumously a Bachelor of Science degree in Family and Consumer Sciences.

The deadline to apply for this higher education scholarship is June 30.

In order to apply for either award, candidates must complete the online form on the webpage for the particular scholarship they are pursuing. All will need to upload an official high school or college transcript, proof of program or university enrollment for the upcoming semester, a resume, a letter from the treating physician confirming a CF diagnosis, and three to four essays.

In these essays, candidates are meant to explain how the financial support provided by the scholarship would aid their education, as well as describe their short- and long-term educational and professional goals, and how CF affects them.

Those applying to the arts scholarships will also need to explain their artistic vision, while those seeking higher education scholarships will have to describe their efforts to demonstrate leadership ability, both within and beyond the CF community.