$1 million in College Scholarships and Grants for Anti-bias Education to be Awarded
Award Ceremony to be held April 29 naming this Year’s Winners
(CLEVELAND, OH) The Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage is proud to announce event information for the 10th Annual Stop the Hate® Award Ceremony, to be held on Sunday, April 29, 2018, at 4pm at the Cleveland Museum of Art. The inspiring event is FREE and open to the public. Registrations are encouraged to guarantee seating. Call 216.593.0575 or CLICK HERE TO REGISTER.
The Maltz Museum’s Stop the Hate® contest, now in its 10th year, is as timely as ever.
“Stop the Hate is more than a scholarship or grant opportunity, it’s a movement,” said program chair Jordan Goldberg. “We are living in a time when speaking out and standing up for each other matters more than ever. This movement is about educating and empowering young people to use their voices for good.”
By challenging young people to consider the benefits of a more inclusive society, the consequences of intolerance, and the role of personal responsibility in effecting change, the Maltz Museum’s Stop the Hate® contest also reflects Jewish values of responsible citizenship and respect for all humanity.
Last year’s grand prize winner, Zephaniah Galloway, then a 12th Grader from Cleveland Early College High School at John Hay, wrote in her personal and powerful essay:
What does it mean to be black? Is it the way my skin absorbs sun rays? Is it the way my hair twists and turns like the Nile River in the land from which my ancestors were stolen? To this day I cannot answer this question because it calls on the overgeneralization of over one billion people. Overgeneralizations cause stereotypes and I refuse to be a part of this cycle of oppression… I am more than the color of my skin.
Galloway took home a $40,000 college scholarship for her essay, and her high school received $5,000 toward anti-bias training. Today, Galloway is attending Howard University in Washington, D.C.
Each year, through the generosity of a donor, the Maltz Museum gives out $100,000 in scholarships, awards, and anti-bias education in recognition of 6–12th grade upstanders in Ashtabula, Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain, Mahoning, Medina, Portage, Stark, Summit, Trumbull, and Wayne counties.
For the 10th anniversary this year, the amount awarded to students and schools participating in Stop the Hate® Youth Speak Out and Youth Sing Out will total $1 million.
Through creative expression of essay and song writing, students participate as part of either:
- Stop the Hate® Youth Speak Out, a personal essay contest with the chance to win individual scholarship money for college (schools also receive money for anti-bias education when students from their schools win); or,
- Stop the Hate® Youth Sing Out, a school-based group song-writing contest with the chance for winning schools to be awarded grant money for anti-bias education.
Between the two contests, approximately 4,000 students from hundreds of schools across 12 Northeast Ohio counties participate each year.
Stop the Hate® Youth Sing Out is collaboration between the Maltz Museum, Roots of American Music (ROAM), and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Select schools visit the Maltz Museum for a Stop the Hate Tour, connecting what they’ve learned at the Museum to discrimination they’ve experienced in their own lives; then, each class writes a song with the help of ROAM and performs for their peers and distinguished Cleveland judges at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
This year’s Youth Sing Out first-place winner in the high school category was Cleveland Heights High School’s “Words on the Wall,” with second place going to Shaw High School. The winner in the middle school category was Newton D. Baker’s “Keep History Alive,” with second place going to Harding Middle School. First-place schools each received $5,000 and second-place schools each received $2,500 toward anti-bias education.
Attendees of the 10th Annual Stop the Hate® Award Ceremony will have the opportunity to see performances by the winning schools of the Youth Sing Out contest.
“The essay entries take center stage at the award ceremony when we hear from the top ten finalists from the Youth Speak Out contest,” said Jeffery Allen, the Museum’s director of education and programming. “These inspiring upstanders, selected from thousands of entries, will read their essays in front of a panel of distinguished Cleveland judges.”
This year’s judges for the 10th anniversary ceremony include: Toni Baker, MSM, PNC; Tai-Chi Chan, Lubrizol; Jessica Cohen, Jewish Federation of Cleveland; James Gutierrez, MD, FACP, Cleveland Clinic; Eduardo Kim, Thompson Hine; George Koussa, Margaret Wong & Associates; Monyka Price, City of Cleveland; Cecilia Render, Nordson Corporation Foundation; Phyllis Harris, LBGT Center of Greater Cleveland; Cynthia Norwood, The ARC Greater Cleveland.
The scholarship winners will be named live at the award ceremony on April 29.
“Come and be inspired,” said Allen.
The award ceremony is free and open to the public. The event begins at 4pm on April 29 at the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Call 216.593.0575 or CLICK HERE TO REGISTER.
