Scholarship Application

Corey Taft
3rd Place, Poetry Category

Volunteer Work: I don't have any.  Too busy just "working"

GPA: I'll have to get back to you on that one.

Extra Curricular Activities: Do drinking games count?

Honors and Achievements: … I once beat Mario Kart on Super Nintendo with a perfect score, stoned out of my mind.

Please Describe yourself in two sentences or less:  I am like 25 times bigger than the average hamster. And this is my second sentence. 

What will this money do for you?:

 I am filling out my scholarship application,

Applying myself in hopes that writing about myself will get somebody to notice,

I need help,

Financial help.

I need money.

I don't have any money.

To go to college you need money,

I don't have any money.

So Mr. or Ms. Application reader, if you don't mind,

Please read my application with an open-mind and an open heart,

And an open wallet.

I'm not going to literally beg you for money.

But I will figuratively beg you for money. 

Think of this application as the verbal equivalent of me on my hands and knees, crying and shouting,

"Please! Please for the love of God, I need money!! Anything, just give me something!"

Well, its obvious, I need help.

Financial help, and psychological help.

If money is the root of all evil, I want to be bad.

Not too bad, bad enough to get me through college.

I was the team captain for my high school basketball team. 

We learned a lot as a team and won every single game. 

That’s a lie. 

But money is the root of all evil and if I want money, I'm going to have to be evil. 

Not "evil" evil, but "good" evil.

The kind of evil you bring home to meet Mom and Dad,

The kind of evil you hang on your wall.

The kind of evil you put in your wallet.

But if money is the root of all evil, then at this moment, I'm Mother Teresa,

Notice under Hobbies and Interests, I wrote:

Slowly saving the world through care, compassion and consideration of everyone of God's children and creatures…. and racquetball.

Ok so I'm lying again.

I have never played racquetball before.  It just seemed like a game intelligent people would play. 

And remember, I'm trying to get money here.

I'm trying to be evil here.

If you don't mind, be a little open-minded, mind you I'm running out of time.

And if its not already apparent, my parents aren't funding my trust fund,

And I don't trust student loans, and trust me if I had the money I wouldn't be bothering you.

Help me help you, help me.

Because I need help,

Financial help. 

What will this money do for you?:  I feel like I'm being judged on what kind of person I am.

As if God was looking down and reviewing these applications.

Seeing who is good and who is bad.

Who is there, who is not quite there, who is there but they're not the kind of person you want here.

Who is righteous, who is wrong.

Who is going to a four-year college, who isn't.

Who knows they're going to a junior college, they just don't want to accept it.

Who deserves salvation, who doesn't.

Looking back on my short lived life, I think it will be good enough for God,

but I don’t know if it will be good enough for the Mary-Ann Ellsworth Memorial Foundation for inner-city girls who like to dance and sing.