The student news site of Benilde-St. Margaret's School in St. Louis Park, MN

Knight Errant

The student news site of Benilde-St. Margaret's School in St. Louis Park, MN

Knight Errant

The student news site of Benilde-St. Margaret's School in St. Louis Park, MN

Knight Errant

Scholarship keeps memory of BSM alum alive

This past fall the BSM community received some shocking news, 2006 graduate Shreya Dixit was killed in a car accident. Teachers, friends, and family were all devastated by this loss, but now nearly six months later Shreya’s family with the help of ’06 grads Kari Foley and Chelsea Leskinen are doing their best to keep her memory alive.

Together they are started the Shreya Dixit foundation, which is offering scholarships to BSM seniors. “After Shreya died we wanted to do something to keep her memory alive,” said ’06 grad and friend of Shreya, Kari Foley.

Both Leskinen and Foley have been asked by Shreya’s family to be on the board of directors of the foundation. “Our job so far has been to organize, get the website up and running, and be the connection to BSM,” said Leskinen.

The connection to BSM was important in getting word out to this year’s seniors about the two scholarships available. The first is a need based scholarship for students at BSM. The second is a memorial scholarship to commemorate Shreya’s life.

“We wanted the scholarship to be easy and not a big hassle. We especially wanted it to come back to Shreya and how she lived her life. She was played the violin and she loved to go to concerts; we to show people a part of her life that people didn’t know about her.”

Students who applied for the scholarship were asked to share their favorite song and then answer a few short questions about themselves. Two BSM seniors that will receive this scholarship will be announced at the end of the year awards ceremony on Wednesday May 7. “Shreya always wanted to give back,” said Leskinen. “She was just a very giving person.”

As for future goals for the foundation, “in the future we are also looking into sponsoring a child to go to school in India,” said Leskinen. Shreya’s parents immigrated from India almost 25 years ago. “I had the opportunity to travel with Shreya and her family to India for spring break our senior year,” said Leskinen. “She was upset by the fact that kids couldn’t go to school there.”

As for right now, “we are most concerned with keeping the foundation going and keeping Shreya’s memory alive,” said Foley.

anna blackford, commentary editor

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The student news site of Benilde-St. Margaret's School in St. Louis Park, MN
Scholarship keeps memory of BSM alum alive