The Vancouver Dodgeball League has always recognized and awarded Best Dressed teams, and Most Spirited team. But did you know we also award scholarships to students outside of VDL? Five of the six founding members attended David Thompson Secondary and our league has grown with David Thompson Secondary being one of its foundation schools. Therefore, it was only natural that David Thompson Secondary became the first school chosen in our new scholarship program.
Starting with the 2011/2012 school year, VDL awarded a $500 scholarship to a student at David Thompson Secondary School who demonstrated leadership both in the community and in sports endeavours.
Here is a list of students who were awarded the VDL Scholarship:
2011/2012: Jeff Baldwin
2012/2013: Lily Cheung
2013/2014: Darlene Buentipo
2014/2015: Kelsey Woodward
2015/2016: Jordan Pham
Starting in 2017, VDL has doubled their contribution to the scholarship program at David Thompson Secondary School, offering a $500 scholarship to one male and one female student.
The following are the recipients of the VDL Scholarship since the change:
2016/2017: Mankirat Gillon & Sylvia Liu
2017/2018: Tommy Dinh & Joyce Peng
In 2018, VDL decided to double down on the youth of today by offering the same scholarships to Gladstone Secondary and Vancouver Technical Secondary each. Both schools were chosen because one of our founding members and the first dedicated group of volunteers attended either Gladstone or Vancouver Technical.
In the future, VDL hopes to grow the scholarship program to include even more schools and to assist more students with their post-secondary education.
VDL has always been an organization that hopes to give back to its community through sport and the recipients of this award mirror those same values. We want to wish all recipients of the award all the best in their future endeavours and hopefully we will see them on the courts some day.