Kassenbrock Scholarship Fund rewards students for community service
Councilman Vincent Gentile remembers how happy he was many years ago when as a senior at Fort Hamilton High School in Bay Ridge, he was awarded a scholarship from the Kassenbrock Brothers Memorial Scholarship Fund.
Gentile, who left Brooklyn after high school to attend Cornell University, said the scholarship was like bringing a piece of his beloved Bay Ridge to Ithaca with him.
“Ever had a piece of warm apple pie in the comfort of your own home? Well, that’s similar to the feeling I had as a recipient of the Kassenbrock Scholarship,” Gentile (D-Bay Ridge-Dyker Heights-Bensonhurst) wrote in an email to the Brooklyn Eagle. “Facing the prospect of going to college some 250 miles from home at Cornell University was somewhat daunting for me as a teenager. So to be acknowledged and helped by a local scholarship fund like Kassenbrock made me feel like I was taking some part of ‘home’ with me to college. The scholarship boosted my confidence and also helped pay for my textbooks that freshman year.”