The Heart of the EHSA Stella and Emmanuel Mavridis Scholarship

EHSA Scholarship Programs

The Heart of the Stella and Emmanuel Mavridis Scholarship

by Sage Marsters
Director, The English High School Alumni & Friends Tutoring Center

Over the course of each school year, as the Director of the English High School Alumni & Friends Tutoring Center, I get to know many students whose unique strengths, life experiences and insights emerge as we spend our days together: fall days as the seniors begin their college essays, the long slog through winter days of slush and revision, and finally spring, and one of my favorite rituals: The Stella and Emmanuel Mavridis Scholarship.

George Mavridis, co-founder of the English High Alumni & Friends Tutoring Center and the Stella & Emmanuel Mavridis Scholarship.

Five years ago, when George Mavridis, The EHSA, and I launched the English High Alumni & Friends Tutoring Center, George also created this scholarship to honor his father, Emmanuel, who graduated from English High in the late 1920’s, and his mother, Stella. To frame the scholarship, George wrote an essay about his dad, sharing memories of his dad’s kindness and patience as both a father and a manager at Bickford’s. Later, George added an essay sharing his mom’s sense of humor, and her dedication to her developmentally challenged niece and the residents of the Fernald Center. Students nominated for a scholarship read about George’s parents, and then write essays reflecting on their own lives, the people who have cared for them, and what they have learned from these caregivers.

Students nominated for a scholarship read about George’s parents, and then write essays reflecting on their own lives, the people who have cared for them, and what they have learned from these caregivers.

Of course, English High students do not disappoint. The students nominated read George’s essays with care and interest, and find ways that their lives both intersect with George’s experiences, and sometimes surprisingly diverge. In 2019, the first year we offered the scholarship, winner Selena Lindor threw George off track, writing: “Unfortunately for me, I do not have a parent that I can look up to the way George could look up to his father.” Selena, who had been reluctant to write the essay, went on to explain, “Even though I did not learn much from my mother but cooking, I would have loved the opportunity to learn much more, like how to handle myself. . .” She explained that her mother had left her life, but that Selena herself had gone on to become independent and even support others through cooking traditional Haitian foods, her way of remaining connected with her mother. In Selena, rather than seeing himself, George saw a reflection of his father’s hard work and care.

Over the years, students have written about mothers who somehow maintain their kindness despite difficult and cruel experiences, fathers who have loved imperfectly yet powerfully, the unconditional love and gentle guidance of grandparents, friends who have provided new perspectives, sisters who have inspired, and the teachers and social workers who have encouraged new confidence.