Pembina West Co-op not only likes to promote groceries; they are also promoting education.
A new program has been implemented that is helping them accomplish just that.
The Pembina West Co-op Student Scholarship Program is an easy way for students to save for their post-secondary education.
“Post secondary is expensive, and there are lots of costs with school, and there are lots of different scholarships that you have to jump through hoops to get, but with this one, we just want to offer it to all of our students,” April Campbell, Human Resource Manager at the Barrhead Co-op said.
The program was created to not only promote longevity with their staff, but also to lend a hand in furthering students’ education.
“We (the Co-op) wanted to create longevity with our students, and we wanted to push the education factor, and give students a little something extra for the hard work that they give us,” Campbell said.
The program is simple, a student working for Pembina West Co-op in Grades 10, 11, or 12, will receive a small sum for each hour worked, which will be put towards their scholarship.
“For the first year, they get 50 cents for every hour worked towards their scholarship, once they progress into Grade 11, we increase it to 75 cents for every hour they work, and as they go into Grade 12, they move up to a dollar,” Campbell explained. “We created it so if a student starts in Grade 10, then the pool starts from day one, and they wouldn’t have to do anything extra to earn the scholarship, they just do their day to day duties and tasks, and we just start the pool for them.”
Students are not expected to take on extra work, but there are some qualifications.
“The student has to work a minimum of 520 hours per year, and it works out to 10 hours a week,” Campbell said. “It’s not like they have to work themselves silly to get the scholarship, but obviously the more they work the more they earn.”
Students benefit from the program in a number of ways, Campbell said.
“They benefit because they can take their cheque, and they can apply it to their studies, or they can apply it to their cost of books, or their housing rentals, we don’t have regulations on what they can spend the money on, we just trust that they are going to spend that money to help with book costs, damage deposit costs, groceries when they first move in and all of those expenses,” she said, adding when it comes to scholarships, students often worry about qualifying.
“They don’t have to have really high academic marks, it’s not something that is really hard for them to achieve, they can just maintain their job with us,” she said.
For students considering taking them up on the offer, Campbell emphasized they don’t have to stay for the full three years.
“They definitely don’t have to work the three years, it’s just obviously more beneficial if they do,” she said, adding the longer they are with the Co-op the more funds they accumulate.
Signing up is easy, Campbell said.
“All they have to do is apply with us, and we go through the same standard interview process as we would anybody else, and upon hiring that’s as easy as it is,” she added. “They don’t have to worry about paperwork, we take care of that on our end.”
If a student starts with the Co-op and later decides against post-secondary, their scholarship is dissolved, however, Campbell said the scholarship is not restricted to college or university, but can also be used for the trades.
The program is specific to the Pembina West Co-op, Campbell said, and the program was added because of the number of students they employ.
“Students are the future, we care about our students. We want to make sure that they are being provided for as much as they can be, as they move on in their next steps in their lives,” she said. “Even if we, as their first-time employer, do offer them something like this, to help them advance in their life, then that’s a win for us.”
For students who already work at the Co-op, their funds will be backtracked to August 31, 2014, and finding out the news was overwhelming for some, Campbell described.
“They were ecstatic, they didn’t think they qualified, because as soon as I told them about our scholarship program and said, you qualify, they were like, how? They didn’t even realize they had qualified already, because people are under the assumption that there is so much you have to do to earn a scholarship,” she said.
The community has had the same response, Campbell added.
“I was in the schools last week, and I talked to career counsellors, I talked to vice-principals, and I was out and about, and the reaction all around was that it was an awesome idea,” Campbell said. “Especially because all they have to do is maintain loyalty to us throughout their high school years, and we take care of the rest.”
