Four ambitious seniors at Pleasant Valley High School are the recipients of the Singer Family C&E Foundation Scholarship.
They are the first students to receive the scholarship since it was halted in 2022, following the movement of the guidance counselor trained to facilitate the scholarship from the high school to the middle school. In January 2024, PVHS guidance counselor Brian Morgan began training with the foundation to be the new lead counselor.
The scholarship is $30,000 per student, and is distributed as $7,500 each year for four years. Usually it is awarded to three students, but this year it went to four. Morgan said the interviewing committee — including foundation chairperson Dr. Bernetta Avery, MD — was equally impressed by a fourth student, so Avery decided to expand the scholarship to include one more person.
The recipients are Anayah Accilien, Lillian Erhardt, Briana Palmieri and Zachary Prator.
Morgan said the scholarship is not awarded based on academic achievement or financial need; the scholarship focuses on finding students who embody the four pillars, which are: compassion, integrity, community and perseverance.
“Perseverance is a big one for Dr. Avery. It’s about what they’ve overcome,” Morgan said. “She’s big on character, and those are the four traits of having a great character.”
Morgan thinks the four students have great character.
“They’re going to be very successful in life,” he said.
Currently ranked third in her class, Anayah Accilien plans to attend Yale University in the fall with a double major of global affairs and political science. She wants to be an international attorney.
Accilien said she thinks the interview process had an encouraging atmosphere.
“I was able to really just talk about everything I am genuinely passionate about from my past and also where I want to be in the future,” she said.
Morgan explained that the scholarship process begins with a 500-word essay that the students complete during a one-hour session at the school.
From there, the essays are reviewed by a panel trained by the foundation. These are people from one of the three other schools that also receives the scholarship. The panel selects six students for in-person interviews.
The in-person interviews for the PVHS students included Dr. Avery; Brian Morgan; and scholarship committee members Dan Muir, Payton Gregory and Kristen Stachina. Muir is a math teacher at PVHS, and Gregory and Stachina are guidance counselors.
Scholarship recipient Briana Palmieri said she was happy to see “familiar faces in the room.”
“You were so supportive throughout the entire thing,” Palmieri said of Morgan. “I really appreciate it so much.”
Palmieri is in line for valedictorian. She plans to go to Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, and major in quantitative finance.
Telling her mother she got the scholarship was eventful.
“I pranked my mom. I did, I pranked her,” Palmieri confessed. “I called her and I said that I didn’t get it.”
After her mother found out the truth, Palmieri said she was very grateful and very proud of her. Palmieri has a twin sister who plans to go to Marywood University to major in nursing.
“Sending both of us to college is really hard right now financially,” she said. “This lets a lot of the stress off my parents.”
Lillian Erhardt agreed with her about the stress of paying for college.
“The scholarship is really huge and important to me, because it’s an opportunity to not have to stress so much about finances in college,” she said.
Erhardt plans to go to Wilkes University and major in environmental science. She is 18th in her class rank.
“I’ve always been passionate about the outdoors,” she said about one of her reasons for her major. “It’s my happy place.”
Erhardt also plans to minor in legal studies, because she wants to make sure environmental regulations are up to par.
Zachary Prator said that to him, the scholarship is about “giving back to my parents. They’ve done so much for me throughout my life and it’s just a small gesture for all the things they’ve done for me.”
Prator plans to go to Penn State Berks and major in nuclear engineering. He is 12th in the class.
Prator said one of the things that stood out about the interview was the request to bring in an object that means something to them or describes them. He brought in his basketball shoes.
“They were super bright and colorful,” he said. “Basically I just talked about how I need to be the color in other people’s lives and spread kindness.”
Brian Morgan wanted to offer a word of thanks to the PVHS Principal Brian Boylan and Superintendent James Konrad for allowing him to attend the training during his work hours and for their support.
“They were instrumental in helping me find the time and allowing me to go through the whole process with Dr. Avery,” Morgan said.
Konrad announced the names of the students who would be receiving the scholarships at a recent school board meeting and thanked Morgan for facilitating it.
“We are so proud of these students. They did a tremendous job,” Konrad said. “This is great news for our students.”
