FOCRLS News
Scholar Spotlight: Anna
Congratulations to Anna, an aspiring woman in science! Anna is now at MIT studying biochemistry with the goal of becoming a medical doctor focusing on research. Anna is one of our five Class... READ MORE
Scholar Spotlight: Sagyan
Congratulations to Sagyan, our Class of 2019 awardee of the CambridgeSeven STEAM Award as well as a CRLS Core Values Scholarship! Sagyan is enrolled at the University of Massachusetts Amherst where he’ll be... READ MORE
Scholar Spotlight: Fatima
Congratulations to Fatima, our Class of 2019 awardee of a Dr. David A. Link Scholarship for the Health Professions, enrolled at Bunker Hill Community College, where she’ll be preparing for a career as... READ MORE
Scholar Spotlight: Prachee
Congratulations to Prachee, our Class of 2019 awardee of a Rose & Victor Rifkin Family Scholarship, now enrolled at Colby College, where she’ll be studying biochemistry on the path to a career in... READ MORE
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Donate to the "100 by 100" Cambridge Business Community STEAM Scholarships

Peterlee, Class of 2019 awardee of the Patrick Ewing Scholarship, now enrolled at Bentley University as a business management major:
“My goal for my life is to live without anything holding me back and to overcome the adversity I do and will continue to face in the future. I want to help those who need my help, and the process of that is starting small, such as my family, community, country, and so on. My professional goal is to start a business that will put my home country, Haiti, on the map. More specifically, I want to start an industrial revolution for Haiti, put them on the world map for trade and commerce, and slowly help to build up a stable economy.”
Friends of CRLS Presents $51,500 in College Scholarships to the CRLS Class of 2019
Friends of CRLS presented $51,500 in the form of 40 College Scholarships to deserving, dedicated members of the CRLS Class of 2019 on Thursday, May 16 at CRLS’s Scholarship Night. These bright students are aspiring scientists, doctors, nurses, engineers, advocates, teachers, and more, ready to pursue degrees so they can make substantial differences in the world.
Additionally, Friends of CRLS will be making installments to three recipients of “It Takes a Village” Multi-Year Scholarships who are currently attending college, for a 2019 total of $53,000.
Congratulations to our awe-inspiring awardees and thank you to our generous donors and sponsors who made these scholarships possible!
Learn more about Friends of CRLS’s Scholarships Program>>
Thank You to Our 2019 Scholarship Sponsors
Bayard McCoy Memorial Fund
Cambridge business community members
Gardner family
Patrick Ewing
Family and friends of Calvin Hicks
Family, friends, colleagues, and patients of Dr. David A. Link
Family and friends of Rose & Victor Rifkin and their descendants
Juliette Kayyem & David Barron
John Leydon
Neil & Katie Rosenburg
Dr. Christopher Saheed
Mary Tavares Sutula & family
If you’re interested in establishing or sponsoring a college scholarship, please contact us.
Cambridge Community Foundation Awards FOCRLS Website Improvement Grant
We hope that everyone who visits our website notices how inviting and vibrant focrls.org is. If you visited our website in years past, we’re sure you’ve observed that its appearance and volume of information has grown by leaps and bounds. Thanks to the generosity of the Cambridge Community Foundation, who awarded Friends of CRLS a $1,000 grant, we are now better able to keep our website current and lively. The grant enabled us to hire SpaceHost to make numerous overdue updates and teach our Administrative Coordinator how to make edits and additions, post photos and news, add slides to the carousel at the top of the home page, connect links, and other basic functions she needs to keep our website fresh, which she has been doing for the past several months. With CCF’s grant, we have been able to keep everyone who’s interested in FOCRLS informed without having to subtract a College Scholarship, Faculty Innovation Grant, or Student Travel Fellowship to pay for the improvements. Supporters, potential supporters, volunteers, potential volunteers, awardees, and potential awardees can all find out what’s going on with our organization, see recent photos, and read about the CRLS students, grads, and faculty members for whom we open up opportunities.
Speaking of Cambridge and Opportunities…Meet Anaya

Anaya, Class of 2019 awardee of the CRLS Core Values Scholarship, is a third generation CRLS graduate! Both of her parents graduated from CRLS, and three of her grandparents graduated from CRLS’s predecessor schools, Rindge Tech and Cambridge High & Latin. Additionally, Anaya is a Posse Scholar, a member of a group of exceptional student leaders chosen to collaborate in pursuit of solving some of the world’s biggest problems with the help of scholarships from Bucknell University. The Bucknell Class of 2023 Boston Posse has 10 members, and Anaya is the only one from CRLS.
Read more about Anaya in her Scholar Spotlight.
Thank you to our Spring Raffle Prize Donors
B Cummings Hair Salon
Bonny’s Garden Center
Harvard Museums of Science & Culture
The Porter Square Hotel & Colette Bistro
The Williams Agency / Boston JerkFest
Thank You to Our Spring 2019 Bash Event Sponsors, Donors, Guests, Committee Members, Volunteers, Presenters, and Performers!
Our 2019 Spring Bash on February 28 celebrated another year of supporting student success and, even more importantly, raised funds to assist members of the CRLS Class of 2019 with college scholarships, grads with multi-year college scholarships, students with travel fellowships for upcoming CRLS trips to Japan and Greece & Italy, and CRLS faculty with grants for creative ways to enrich learning for students in grades 9-12.
Photos by Zora Neale Walton . Scroll down to see more photos below!
Extra Big Thanks to Our 2019 Spring Bash Event Sponsors:
Falcon Level: $10,000
Benefactor Level: $2,500
DivcoWest / Cambridge Crossing
Elaine Schear
Co-Founder, Friends of CRLS
Trinity Property Management, Inc.
Champion Level: $1,000
Alexandria Real Estate Equities
Anonymous (2)
Maria & Greg Jobin-Leeds
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Supporter Level: $500
Tom & Nancy Akbari
Gerald & Kate Chertavian
East Cambridge Business Association
Tracy & Bertil Jean-Chronberg
Jamie Ann Sabino & Richard B. Klibaner
Daniel Serfaty & Irene Mizrahi
3MJ Realty / Ten Essex, Central Square
Friends of CRLS 2019 Spring Bash
February 28 at Google, Kendall Square
Photos by Zora Neale Walton
Tweet from Mass. State Rep. Marjorie Decker
Photos courtesy of Rep. Decker’s office

Meet a Few of Our Many Highly Deserving Awardees



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Student Travel Fellows
Lorra, Isaiah, Summia, and Reggie
in Ecuador, on a 2018 trip that included
the Galapagos Islands

Rakeyah (holding FOCRLS sign),
CRLS Class of 2018 recipient of the
“100 by 100” Cambridge
Business Community STEAM Award
for Science, now studying at
UMass Amherst: “I want to become
a biotechnologist to have
experiences where I can not only satisfy
my great passion for science but also help
people be healthier and to find
breakthrough cures that will save lives.”
Lamisa, CRLS Class of 2018 recipient of the
First Scholars Award and the
Dr. David A. Link Scholarship for the
Health Professions, now studying at
Simmons University:
“I am now studying Neuroscience,
Computer Science, and Public Health
in hopes to find which one (or two!)
I enjoy best. I’m thankful for receiving these
scholarships and I am the happiest
I could be at Simmons.

Thomas, Class of 2018 awardee of the
Juliette Kayyem & David Barron Scholarship
for Children of First Responders — now
studying marine biology at the
University of Rhode Island —
and his family, including his dad, who,
before retiring, served as a
Cambridge police officer for 30 years

Xolotl, Class of 2018 awardee of the
CRLS Core Values Scholarship and the
Colonel & Mrs. Henry Bayard McCoy Memorial
Scholarship, whose “aspirations are to become
a professor who can write, teach, and research
about Latinx masculinity and gender, and the
unseen impact it has on people’s
everyday lives,” is now studying at
Stanford University.