The Pembroke Hamilton Club Foundation has reached a milestone.

This year’s seven awardees, who received a share of $24,000 in scholarship grants, bumped the overall total of those to have benefited from the scholarship programme past the century mark.

Since its inception in 2004, a total of 101 student-athletes have received $450,000 in scholarships.

The awardees this year include Nazari Woods, Hayden Dill, Kauai Evans, Taznae Fubler, Eijaz Shakir, T’Syi Showers and Dimitrius Richardson, who were awarded scholarship grants to assist with their studies at preparatory school, college and university.

They received their grants at the PHC Foundation’s 17th annual scholarship awards presentation at the City Hall on August 5.

Danté Leverock, the Bermuda centre half and former captain, was a guest speaker at the ceremony. He emphasised to the recipients the importance of having an education to fall back on once their careers in sport have ended.

To be eligible for scholarships, applicants must be an active member of PHC’s various programmes for at least four consecutive years.

Applicants must also:

• Hold Bermudian status and be a permanent resident of Bermuda

• Be pursuing a programme of higher learning at an approved institution of higher education, including the Bermuda College

• Be able to present clearly identified goals and career paths

• Possess a minimum grade point average of 2.5

At the discretion of the committee, scholarships will be granted each year up to a maximum of $10,000 to the recipients to be used towards covering the cost of tuition, living expenses and literature.

Remarkably, the foundation, which is a registered charity, managed to achieve its mandate of securing corporate and private donations under trying economic circumstances brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We haven’t completed our solicitations yet so we are still going out to donors, past donors and potential new donors to seek additional funding,” Mark Simons, the PHC Foundation president, told The Royal Gazette. “So a large part of the $24,000 that was allocated this year comes from the foundation’s capital base.”

He added: “Typically what we do is we tie our annual scholarship funds so the total that we would give to all applicants who got selected for scholarships was tied directly to what we took in donations that year.

“Due to Covid our ability to get donations has been interrupted in a big way and so we have had to actually use some of our capital to fund the scholarships actually from last year and this year.”