ChairScholars Rewards Abilities

By STEPHEN HAMMILL The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 3, 2008

KEYSTONE - For 55 Tampa Bay area students, last weekend resulted in a rare gift: a free education.

The scholarships, which guarantee full tuition for a bachelor's degree through the Florida university system or tuition assistance for vocational training, were awarded at the ChairScholars Foundation's 12th annual festival.

The national foundation, with headquarters in Keystone, provides the scholarships to physically disabled students.

"It's a lot harder for you to get up every day and go to school," said foundation co-founder Alicia Keim, addressing the local winners during the awards ceremony. "You all have a tremendous amount of courage. We are not giving you a scholarship. You earn it."

Eighth-grader Celina Rosales of Citrus Park is one of 14 winners from Hillsborough County.

"She's such a sweet girl," said Caroll Vick, program director for ChairScholars. Rosales was seriously burned as a child.

"This is such a wonderful thing they've put together," said Katrina Walker of St. Petersburg, whose son Jamez won a scholarship this year.

To become a ChairScholar, students must be enrolled in public school, have a serious physical challenge and show financial need.

Keim and her husband, Hugo, founded the program in 1992. Since 1996, the couple have hosted a yearly festival at the foundation's headquarters, also their home, to bring together past and present winners and their families.

To date, they have awarded 510 scholarships worth more than $6 million.

About 1,000 people attended this year's festival, including more than 130 ChairScholars and 120 volunteers, including members of the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office.

Booths featured carnival games, face painting, fortunetelling, flag football and dancing, courtesy of Revolutions Dance Company, a troupe made up of members with mixed abilities.

"We adapt different styles to people," said Aime Fishinger, the company's artistic director. "We can take footwork and adjust it to wheelwork. Everything's adaptable."

This year's festival theme, ChairScholars Olympics, recognized the upcoming Paralympic Games in Beijing.

U.S. Paralympic swimmer and 2004 ChairScholar Elizabeth Kolbe delivered the keynote address. Kolbe began swimming as therapy after a 2000 car accident left her a quadriplegic.

The Harvard student holds 14 American records and will compete in the 2008 Paralympic Games in September.

"Limits don't really exist," she told the crowd. "I'm sure all of you will have amazing stories to tell in the future and I can't wait to hear them."

Following the awards ceremony, the visitors were treated to a barbecue.

Including the national students, the foundation awarded 81 scholarships this year, a record.

In 1995, ChairScholars linked up with the Hillsborough Education Foundation, a nonprofit organization aimed at student and teacher assistance programs not funded by tax revenue.

The foundation provides a mentor to Bay area winners, who signed contracts during the ceremony agreeing to remain drug- and crime-free.

Hugo Keim, who lost his left eye while in medical school, spent 29 years as chief of spinal surgery at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York, where in 1978 he met his wife, a former patient plagued with a severe curvature of the spine.

The two began the foundation as way to bridge gaps that, for the disabled, quickly become formidable.

"The hurdles they face are manageable again when a few caring people help out," Alicia Keim said.

The couple bought their 58-acre home on Pretty Lake in 1996, clearing out a field for the annual festival.

The number of scholarships awarded depends on how much money they can raise, Alicia Keim said, and next year they expect another record.

"I think this is the biggest tent we can get," she said. "I don't know what we'll do next year."

For information, call (813) 920-1981 or go to www.chairscholars.org.

Reporter Stephen Hammill can be reached at shammill@tampatrib.com or (813) 865-1523.