At the annual Senior Awards Night, many Venice High seniors were awarded over $130,000 in scholarships from the VHS Alumni Association on May 23 in the West Gym. Other groups like PTSA, Venice academic and athletic departments as well as national and community organizations also awarded scholarships to seniors. College can be expensive, but the scholarship winners were happy to accept the grants that will help them pay for college.

Many family members who attended the event, jumped out of their seats and cheered as they heard the name of their children being called to receive scholarship awards ranging from $100-$16,000.

From the Alumni Association, seniors Frances Flores, Jaylen Harris and Tigerell Hodge were granted $16,000; Camryn Butze was awarded a check worth $5000. Many others were awarded checks ranging from $100-$4,000.

Many of the students plan to use this money towards housing, paying for their tuition and buying textbooks for school.

“Tuition is expensive, so I’ll use it for books, and I’m planning to find a cheaper offer for housing,” said senior Jenny Chen.

Seniors who have taken four years of a language and passed an oral examination were honored with a seal of biliteracy for languages like Spanish, French, Japanese and Mandarin. Over 70 students were honored with white cords.

“I worked towards earning this award because I liked learning Spanish a lot,” said Chen.

Apart from the biliteracy award, members of the California Scholarship Federation Delphians Honor Society were given their gold graduation cords.

At the ceremony, many were honored with a gold tassel for having a 3.60 GPA or higher; others who got silver tassels needed to earn a 3.0-3.5 GPA. Those who participated in the music program earned a pink tassel.

Alyssa Berman was recognized as Female Athlete of the year; Zachary Stayner and Levi Premer as the Male Athlete of the Year.

Seniors were also given various awards, including Chatelaines and Esquires’ Awards, Music Department Awards, English Department awards, STEMM Awards, Italian Awards, Spanish Department Awards, Science Department Awards, Athletic Department Awards and Sports Medicine Team Awards.