The two major criteria for getting a Rotary scholarship are service and leadership.

In her scholarship application, Whitehall resident Kassidy Cunningham said, “Serving people around me is important and is my ultimate career goal.”

This is one of the reasons Cunningham was awarded the $1,000 scholarship from Allentown-West Rotary Club. The scholarship will be payable directly to a university or college of her choice.

Cunningham has served others by volunteering in a number of ways. She volunteered with Miracle League for many years by assisting special-needs students in playing sports, particularly baseball. Additionally, she served as a mentor with the Special Olympics for four years.

She helped with Whitehall-Coplay School District’s Snack Pack Pals program. Both by collecting food and packing the bags, she assisted students in need. At Lehigh Carbon Community College, she went to the Second Harvest Food Bank warehouse facility to help organize and pack food for transport.

Donating and giving out presents during the holiday season through Spirit of the Lehigh Valley is another activity in which she participated.

Sports have been the arena where she most uses her leadership skills, according to Cunningham.

At Whitehall High School, she was captain of her soccer, track and field and field hockey teams. Now she is the head coach for the Whitehall-Coplay Middle School field hockey team. It is quite a responsibility to manage 11- to 14-year-olds to develop their fundamental skills, she said.

Cunningham is also an assistant coach for the WHS track and field team. Her job is to assign distances to run and time runners to track improvement.

Cunningham is in the honors program and is majoring in business administration at LCCC. She is also a member of the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society.

She plans to transfer to DeSales University or Moravian College as a junior and hopes to open a nonprofit organization to help the community around her.

She said she already knows personal happiness is found by giving back to others.

In addition to the scholarship check, Cunningham will receive a Kindle Fire 10, compliments of Amazon in the Lehigh Valley, under general manager Ed Buddenheim, and a set of Allentown-West Rotary pens.