Destination Hoover International awards 2022 scholarships to Bardai, Hamley
The Destination Hoover International nonprofit on Tuesday night awarded $2,000 scholarships to two students from Hoover and Spain Park high schools.
This year’s scholarship recipients are Zahra Bardai from Spain High and Zach Hamley from Hoover High.
Bardai, 18, plans to attend the University of Alabama at Birmingham, major in elementary education and minor in global international studies. She also wants to travel abroad and learn about different cultures.
Bardai said the UAB Collat School of Business has a focus on entrepreneurship and leadership and she might one day want to open her own charter school.
She has been a class officer for her class, served on the student board of the Hoover City Schools Foundation for four years and this school year has been a counselor for the YMCA after-school program at Riverchase Elementary School.
Hamley, 17, plans to attend Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, major in international studies and minor in Japanese. He wants to become a martial arts teacher.
Hamley said he started taking martial arts at age 5, spent about 11 years training at USA Martial Arts in Bluff Park and more recently has trained at World Oyama Karate in Homewood.
Nothing breaks down barriers people people of different cultures like exercising and sweating together, he said.
Hamley, who is a part of the International Baccalaureate program at Hoover High and a cadet captain with the schools’ Air Force Junior ROTC program, already has obtained three hours of college credit by taking Mandarin Chinese while in high school.
Destination Hoover International, a group that aims to foster cultural exchange and relationships between the city of Hoover and countries outside the United States, presented both scholarships at Jubilee Joe’s Cajun Seafood Restaurant on the first night of the restaurant’s 2022 Crawfish Fest.
Jubilee Joe’s is donating 10% of all proceeds during the six-day festival to DHI’s scholarship program. Over the past four years, the restaurant has given about $11,000 toward the scholarships, DHI President Shelley Shaw said.