2024 Surprise Sundancers Scholarships Announced

July 11, 2024 – The Surprise Sundancer’s Board of Directors announced today that they have awarded $163,500 in scholarships to 94 youth from the Surprise area. This amount is the second-largest award total in the history of Sundancers scholarships, behind the $213,750 awarded in 2019. The individual scholarship recipients are being notified of their scholarships by the Arizona Community Foundation.

This year’s total awards were made to a total of 94 Sundancers Scholars. This number of scholars was third in total, behind 98 (2021) and 95 (2020). There were 78 first-year scholarships, with two of the top-rated recipients receiving the prestigious Mark Coronado scholarships with a value of $5,000 for the first year, 47 recipients receiving Tier 1 scholarships with a value of $2,000 each, and 29 recipients receiving Tier 2 scholarships with a value of $1,500. There were 16 returning recipients who were awarded an additional one-year scholarship of $1,000 each.

All awards were made based on scores derived from blind rankings and criteria by a subcommittee of the Sundancers Board of Directors and outside evaluators. The scholarship application process is managed by the Arizona Community Foundation. The Arizona Community Foundation manages more than 120 scholarship funds for organizations throughout Arizona. Each scholarship has its own individual eligibility criteria. Eligibility for awards is determined based on answers to the questions and essays on the General Application and review and scoring by the Surprise Sundancer’s evaluators.