NPC student to use scholarship to continue social work degree
Kimberly Luna, a National Park College student, has received the Wencel Social Sciences Scholarship to continue her education and pursue her degree in social work.
The scholarship was named in honor of Emil
E. Wencel.
“The Wencel scholarships are divisional and provide scholarship assistance for fulltime students. I believe this was the college’s first endowment and was established by the Wencel trust during Gerald Fisher’s tenure in the ’80s,” Nicole Herndon, NPC executive director of the NPC Foundation, said.
“It makes me feel happy that I got this scholarship. I wasn’t expecting it at all. I didn’t think I was ever eligible for one … I was just depending on my grant. It was helpful. It’s my last semester in National Park and it surprised me … I needed all the help I (can) get,” Luna said.
Luna said she feels her academics had something to do with her getting the scholarship, noting she tries to keep A’s and B’s and no C’s or below.
“That’s not what I want,” Luna said.
Luna was not expecting to go to UALR or NPC because when she graduated from Bismarck she saw herself at the University of Central
Arkansas.
“That’s where I saw myself going; that’s where I saw everything, but it didn’t work out like that because my ACT score was not the best. I knew that I was not going to be able to afford it financially. I (had) to go somewhere I (was) going to be able to be successful and not struggle with money,” Luna said.
Luna said she likes NPC better because she is closer to home and she loves being close to her family.
Luna decided to go into social work because she was surrounded by social workers, counselors or therapists who were always connecting her to people other than her family, which was struggling financially or just struggling, she said, noting her sister was going in and out of therapy.
“At that moment in my life, I didn’t see how much they were helping me. My sister is in a better place now. It wouldn’t have been like that if there weren’t people helping us,” Luna said.
“The field of social work means much more to me because the resources I didn’t know before. … I feel like if my family didn’t know, then there are going to be so many more people that don’t know,” she said. “I believe that there should be that person that interferes or intervenes to help them.”
Luna lived with a family member who battled with mental health issues when she was younger. She noted she was surrounded by social workers and counselors and learned the importance of this support group which offered advice, guidance and resources through her struggles. She said she wants to give back to the community that invested so much in her family, according to a news release.
“I really enjoyed having Kim in my class. She often would come early to sit and talk about whatever was going on in her life and freely shared joys and struggles,” Carol Gray, NPC instructor, said. “She did not let her struggles hinder her for too long and by the next class usually had a victory to share about how she got through it.
She always has a smile on her face when I see her with her friends.”
“I know that she really looks forward to working in her career field when she gets through with her college goals. She will be an asset to the field, and she is a well-deserved recipient of this scholarship,” Gray said.