First Fuller Scholar ready to graduate from college

AUGUSTA — The first recipient of the Calumet Education Foundation’s four-year Robert G. Fuller Jr. Scholarship, Katelyn Pino, of Belgrade, is about to mark a milestone.
In 2017, Pino of Belgrade was a senior at Messalonskee High School in Oakland, planning to attend St. Joseph’s College and major in nursing. She was raised in a single-parent family with two other siblings and money for tuition was always going to be a big factor.
She was encouraged by her mother and her school guidance counselors to seek out every scholarship available, including the Fuller Scholarship.
“The Calumet Education Foundation was special for me since my grandfather had been a member of Le Club Calumet for many years,” she said recently. She chose nursing as a career because she wanted to help others. She was awarded a four-year scholarship by the foundation and persevered despite the challenges of the last year. This year she was able to begin her medical-surgical nursing internship at MaineGeneral Medical Center in Augusta, a field she plans to specialize in.
She will graduate from St. Joseph’s College with a bachelor of science in nursing in May.
Robert Fuller had established a scholarship a generation ago to help with the great financial need of many graduating high school seniors in central Maine. Recognizing that almost half of college students drop out of school because of lack of money, he realized that if students stayed in school after their first-year scholarships were exhausted, they would have to take on tremendous debt. Fuller believed that students should not have to make that choice.
Fuller, after meeting with Le Club Calumet Educational and Literary Foundation, decided to do more. Beginning in 2017, the foundation began awarding a four-year scholarship to one recipient, who receives up to $15,000 each year of their four years of college. Besides Pino, three other students have received scholarship. Though the award takes into account academic and extracurricular achievement, the Fuller Scholarship prioritizes applicants with financial need who are the first in their family to go to college. Eligible applicants reside in central Maine towns with a zip code between 04300 and 04399.
Pinos’s advice to all those preparing for college is to choose a vocation that they will be happy and fulfilled in. “You only have one life,” she said. “I can’t wait to be a full-time nurse.”
The Calumet Education Foundation is accepting scholarship applications for its 2021 application cycle, with a May 15 deadline. The foundation offers 20 different named scholarships and offers awards to roughly 30 high school graduates and current college students, last year totaling more than $100,000 in awards. The Foundation also offers grants to college students each fall, with a grant application deadline of Aug. 15.
For more information about the Fuller Scholarship, other foundation scholarships visit calumeteducationfoundation.org.