Four graduating seniors were awarded college scholarships by the Rotary Club of Lakewood and Rocky River at its weekly meetings on June 4 and 11.

Brian Donahoe and Bihieshta Jabarkhil from Lakewood High School, Jacquelyn Pappadakes from Rocky River High School, and Kiara Hoefsmit from Saint Joseph Academy, received $3,000 awards from the Lakewood-Rocky River Rotary Foundation. This $12,000 program is part of over $60,000 that the local Rotary club donates to the community each year.

In addition to demonstrating academic achievement and potential, these four Rotary scholarship winners were chosen for extracurricular and community involvement.

Brian Donahoe was active in Student Council and the Barnstormers theatre troupe. For four years he was on the school’s Academic Challenge and boys’ soccer teams. Last year, Brian garnered the highest GPA of the school’s fall athletes. He wants to explore the fields of civil and aerospace engineering at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend.

Bihieshta Jabarkhil will face the new world of college with courage and determination as she did when she immigrated to this country with her parents and seven siblings just four years ago. Arriving speaking no English, Bihieshta threw herself into her studies. Her goal is a career in the medical field like the position her father had to leave behind in Afghanistan. Bihieshta will study health careers at Cleveland State University.

Jacquelyn Pappadakes was equally comfortable on the athletic field where she co-captained the girls’ lacrosse team or in the newsroom of the Pirate Press student newspaper where her roles included business manager and editor. For the past seven years, she’s promoted drug and alcohol resistance education through the West Shore Young Leaders. Because of the strong influence teachers have had in her life, Jacqueline will study early childhood education at Lourdes University in Toledo.

Kiara Hoefsmit has received awards for painting, graphic design, scholastic achievement, and figure skating. She has racked up more than 450 service hours through her school for her volunteer duties at the Museum of Divine Statues, the Neonatal ICU at MetroHealth Medical Center, and as a Learn-to-Skate instructor. With an interest in the field of nursing, Kiara will study biomedical illustration at Rochester Institute of Technology in New York.

The local Rotary club is part of Rotary International, a worldwide organization of more than 1.2 million business, professional, and community leaders. Members of Rotary clubs (known as Rotarians) provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations, and help build goodwill and peace in the world.

There are 33,000 Rotary clubs in more than 200 countries and geographical areas. Clubs are nonpolitical, nonreligious, and open to all cultures, races, and creeds. As signified by the motto “Service Above Self,” Rotary’s main objective is service – in the community, in the workplace, and throughout the world. To learn more, visit www.rotary.org.