Help Them Win: East Haven Students Compete for Hood Scholarships

OK, East Haven: It's once again time to click those computer mouses and tap those laptop touchpads.

Five East Haven High School students — Angelica Coppolla, Emily Kuzma, Juliana Maisano, Connor Thornberg and Elisa Tomasello — are each competing for one of this year's Hood Sportsmanship Scholarships.

The program, which is sponsored by Hood Milk dairy company, awards three $5,000 scholarships to students in each of the six New England states.

Community Support

Unlike more traditional program's, however, Hood scholarship finalists are chosen through an online voting system.

Each of the candidates have their own voting page on the company's website, which also includes an essay written as part of qualifying for the program.

You can find each of the student athlete's individual pages below:

• Angelica Coppolla
• Emily Kuzma
• Juliana Maisano
• Connor Thornberg
• Elisa Tomasello

Supporters can vote for the candidates of choice once a day, every day until April 15.

Scholar Athletes

In order to qualify, scholarship candidates must have participated in a high school varsity sport and intend on enrolling in a two-or four-year college or university this the fall.

Students must also have earned a cumulative 3.0 grade point average or higher, as well as performed volunteer work in their community.

Selection Process

The online vote will close April 15 at 3 p.m. From there, the top 10 vote getters from each of the six New England states will be named.

These finalists will then be interviewed in March by a panel of judges, with three winners selected from each state.

Scholarship winners will be honored at an awards ceremony and entered into the Hood Sportsmanship Scholarship Hall of Fame, the company states on its website.