HANO Scholarship – 2023

Barbara Dresel, Village Laguna Scholarship Chair, presents the Arnold and Bonnie Hano Village Laguna Scholarship to Uma Bhatia at the Laguna Beach High School 2023 Honors Convocation.

Every year since 1978, Village Laguna has awarded a scholarship to a Laguna Beach High School graduating senior who shows leadership and involvement in activities that protect the environment and promote humanitarian goals. For the 22-23 school year, Village Laguna was pleased to present the Arnold and Bonnie Hano scholarship to Uma Bhatia.

Uma has been very active in her school and community. In addition to being an outstanding scholar, she was president of Zero Trash Laguna, which spearheaded environmental initiatives on campus and in the city.  She showed her involvement in environmental and humanitarian activities by participating in a marine conservation service trip to the Dominican Republic, rebuilding coral reefs, maintaining mangrove forests, and protecting existing coral.  Uma rounds out her profile with volunteer experiences at the Laguna Beach Animal Shelter, No Square Theatre, and tutoring elementary and middle school students. She was Editor-in-Chief of the High School newspaper and participated in school sports and music groups.

Village Laguna was fortunate to have Uma speak at our June General Meeting where she thanked us and informed us that she would be attending Johns Hopkins University, with the goal of attending medical school.

The Village Laguna scholarship committee is pleased that we had one of the largest groups ever of very qualified scholarship applicants.  We look forward to hearing of their future endeavors and achievements and thank them for their applications.