College Ten student Amanda Rose Timoney has been awarded the 2013 Donald A. Strauss Scholarship for her project entitled Street Outreach Supporters (SOS): Increasing the Health and Wellness of Injection Drug Users within Santa Cruz County. The Donald A. Strauss Public Service Scholarship Foundation, established as a memorial to the late Don Strauss of Newport Beach, awards $10,000 scholarships to as many as fifteen California college juniors annually.
The Strauss scholarships fund public service projects that students have proposed and will carry out during their senior year. Timoney, who hails from Downey, CA, will create, organize, and facilitate several projects in order to increase the health and wellness of injection drug users within Santa Cruz County. Her projects will focus on increasing the accessibility of services such as HIV and Hepatitis C testing, disposable sharps containers, and emergency overdose reversing medication. Timoney will also lead biweekly harm reduction workshops in the hopes of creating a safe space for injection drug users to express their struggles, challenges, and needs while also providing them with skills that have the potential to empower, educate, and create a sense of ‘ownership’ for their community. These workshops will also hopefully inspire steps toward recovery and treatment.
Don Strauss demonstrated a strong, lifelong commitment to public service and education, reflected by his serving ten years on the Newport-Mesa Unified School District Board, and twelve years on the Newport Beach City Council, including one as mayor. He founded summer internships in Washington, D.C., for students at Cornell University, Stanford University, the University of Rhode Island, the California Institute of Technology, and Harvey Mudd College; he also endowed scholarships at Stanford, U.C. Irvine, and Harvey Mudd. Strauss died in 1995 at the age of 79.
Strauss’s widow, Dorothy M.R. Strauss, established the Foundation in January of 1997 as a “tribute to the vision, ideals and leadership of Donald A. Strauss.” In its first year, the Foundation Board invited ten universities to nominate up to three students each for Strauss scholarships, with the board making the final selection of the ten winners. (Dorothy Strauss saw her vision for the Foundation realized--she phoned each of the ten first-year winners to notify them personally--before she passed away in October of 1997 at the age of 83).
In its second year, the Foundation was able to broaden its reach and award fifteen $10,000 scholarships, and now gives ten-fifteen each year. This year represents the Foundation’s 17th group of recipients—since its inception, the Foundation has now awarded more than 230 scholarships. Like their counterparts in the past, all of these new recipients have extensive records of community and public service, as well as a demonstrated desire to “make a difference.”
