Scholarship Program Summary

Application Accepted         Due Date              Board Vote/Award              Contact Applicants
January 1 – June 30               June 30                  July Board Meeting                  3rd week July
July 1 – December 31             Dec. 31                  January Board Meeting           3rd week January

Applicant Timeline: There are two, 6-month scholarship opportunities with due dates of June 30th and December 31 in which scholarship applications are accepted to any/all of the seven UF FMNP courses of your choice.

• 3, 40-hour FMNP Core Modules and 4, 24-hour FMNP Special Topics
• Email sent to applicant upon receipt of application – Scholarship Chairperson
• Download application HERE – FMNP Pinellas Scholarship application

Scholarship Course Location & Timeline: The scholarship must be used for a course offered in Pinellas County before the end of one year from the award date.

Application Eligibility Vote: On the third Wednesday of the following months: July and January respectively, the Friends of PMN Board verifies applicant eligibility. Applicants will be contacted late July or January with the results.

Scholarship Applicant Criteria

The applicant should ideally be…

• A Pinellas County full time resident or current member of the Friends of Pinellas Master Naturalists (member when application submitted and scholarship drawn
• Volunteering or working in the environment field and showing interest to learn more
• In a position to have a positive influence on others (spread the word of lessons learned)
• Have the ability to fully participate in the class (time off from work, etc.)

Ideally, the candidate will be in a position to share learned experiences with a great number of people, i.e. have a large sphere of influence on both youth and adult.

Download Criteria as a PDF – FMNP Pinellas Scholarship criteria

Winner Drawing: Those deemed eligible based upon our above scholarship criteria will have their names placed into a hat. A board member will randomly draw the applicant names to create a scholarship winner list. The first name chosen will be the winner of that drawings scholarship and will have one year from award date to take the course of their choice.

• An announcement email will be sent to the scholarship winner, and all other applicants; we will also post on all of our current media outlets and send an announcement to our email list.
• Forfeit & Runner-up:  If the first drawn winner is not able to take a course before the end of one year from their scholarship award date or returns the scholarship than the scholarship will be offered to the second person drawn and so on through the list until a winner is found or the list extinguished.
• When you become a winner – we ask you to attended our annual meeting and talk briefly about your scholarship experience.

Application Resubmitted One Time Automatically: Any applicant who is voted eligible but does not win the scholarship will automatically have their application be resubmitted one time into our next scholarship drawing. If an applicant does not win the scholarship the second time, they are encouraged to submit a new application for a future scholarship term.