Melanie Drozdowsky - Michael Rebryk Memorial Scholarship winner

The final scholarship awarded this year was The Ukrainian Credit Union Limited Board of Directors' Memorial Scholarship Award, in Memory of Michael Rebryk. It is also valued at $2,500.

This year’s winner of the award is Melanie Drozdowsky. Melanie is a 4th student of Kinesiology and Recreation Management at the University of Manitoba. She began her studies at the University of Toronto and transferred to UofM for her last year. She was brought up in a very athletic family and has been a competitive swimmer for 16 years. She swam for the University of Toronto Varsity Team, making a Canadian National Standard during her swimming career. She has also coached other swimmers and workers as a life guard. Melanie is an active member of PLAST. She continues helping the organization in planning the annual Malanka, working as a counsellor at summer camps as a podruha in PLAST Winnipeg. She was the Vice-President of the University of Toronto Ukrainian Students’ Club in 2010-2011 and is an active member of SUSK. Melanie Drozdowsky, please come up to accept your reward.

About the Michael Rebryk Memorial Scholarship

Michael Rebryk (1927-2010) was first elected to the UCU Board on February 20, 1966 eventually becoming its second president/chair in 1981, a post he held until 1997. Upon his retirement from the Board on January 26, 2000, the Board honoured Michael for his over three decades of active service to the credit union by appointing him an Honourary Life Director. He continued to attend Board meetings of the credit union in an advisory capacity until his deteriorating health no longer permitted him to do so.

Michael was a particularly active member of the Ukrainian National Federation and the broader Ukrainian community in Toronto. He was a sports enthusiast who was a onetime basketball and volleyball coach and who helped introduce baseball into Ukraine in the early 1990’s. He had a great tenor voice and loved to sing and was a past member of the UNF Boyan Choir and the St. Demetrius choir for many years. In recognition of his lifelong interests in sports and the performing arts, this award will be made to a candidate of Ukrainian heritage who is enrolled full time in a post-secondary institution in a field of study that will lead to a career in:

1. Sports, recreation, physical education and related disciplines
2. Sports medicine, kinesiology and related disciplines, OR
3. Music, dance, drama, or any of the performing arts disciplines

and who shows above average academic skills, and demonstrates leadership and community involvement.

This is the last of the 2013 scholarship winners that we have profiled over the last two weeks on the blog. You can see lots of photos from the 1st Annual UCU Scholarship Award Gala on our Facebook page. You can read more about the 1st Annual UCU Scholarship Gala here.

Congratulations to all the winners! You are all very talented and deserving of praise! Keep reading the blog for more about this year's scholarship winners. And if you didn't apply this year, why not think about it next year? Visit our Scholarship page on our website for more details. The call for application normally goes out in late December, early January and the deadline is the end of February.