The SPIRIT Scholarship - Description  
   
For the youth whose SPIRIT will "Show Potential, Integrity, Responsibility, and Inspire Thousands!"
The SPIRIT Scholarship is an award to a college-bound senior from Thomas Spriggs Wootton High School in Rockville, Maryland. For the 2013-2014 school year, one individual will win the 4th Annual award of $5000. 

Wootton High School is consistently ranked among the Top-20 to the Top-100 public schools in the nation. The Robert Yin SPIRIT Foundation Inc. and its supporters are excited to offer this scholarship to a top student from a top school, to help perpetuate the tradition of excellence and values among its great student body.

The Foundation and the SPIRIT Scholarship both include "SPIRIT" in their names, in order to emphasize the importance of a positive attitude, leadership qualities, and community involvement. As an acronym, SPIRIT stands for “Show Potential, Integrity, Responsibility, and Inspire Thousands!” The young SPIRIT Scholar who wins this award will represent such values.

The SPIRIT Scholarship is important because will rally, honor, and reward young people for good behavior and talent. In addition to a strong school record, the competition will require an essay on the subject of "Tell us how you do it!" about doing good and helping others. The winner will be expected to produce a YouTube video of the student's original creation that highlights his or her essay and other talent or ideas. 

This SPIRIT Scholarship is a gift of love, in memory of a Wootton High School graduate, Robert Yin, Class of 2008. Tragically, Robert died in May 2010. Robert succumbed to brain injuries after he hit his head, pole vaulting during a NCAA Track and Field meet. In shock and grief over this tragedy, Robert's family and friends decided to create the SPIRIT Foundation for the purpose of hosting the SPIRIT Scholarship in his honor. Robert himself is the original quintessential SPIRIT Scholar!

The first scholarship was awarded in 2011, to WHS grad Jeff Hilnbrand; and in 2012 to Isabella Mia Lee. Both Jeff and Mia attend University of Maryland in College Park. In Year 3, the scholarship winner was James Chengyu Liu, who now attends Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, majoring in Economics and Computer Science.

The annual scholarships will continue through the year 2020, for a minimum of 10 years, but hopefully for a generation or 20 years. The Robert Yin SPIRIT Foundation has a dream:  to give SPIRIT Scholarships to the Wootton community for many many years to come. If we raise $100,000 we will be able to endow the SPIRIT Scholarship to last for perpetuity. That is our goal. If you can help us to reach this goal, we appreciate your donation.

We are already well over halfway towards that seemingly impossible dream of raising $100,000. At a benefit concert for Robert, the Rock for Robert Concert, on Thanksgiving Eve 2010, it was announced an anonymous donor has pledged $50,000 towards the SPIRIT Scholarship. If you can, stand with us to support SPIRIT in our community, so that we can show more SPIRIT beyond the WHS scholarships. Help us to reach this goal with your kind donation.