The Cape Ann Forum has named Gloucester High School senior Maryka Gillis as its 2012 recipient of its annual international awareness award.
The award, which comes with a $500 scholarship, is given in recognition of a student's "pursuit of academic, international and cultural enrichment within and beyond the traditional classroom" and her "commitment in educating other students and the wider community on these critical issues," said Dan Connell, chairman of the forum.
Candidates are selected in consultation with Gloucester High teachers. Connell told the audience of more than 120 at the Middle Street Unitarian Universalist Church at the forum's final program of the season that Gillis's teachers described her as "a very bright kid who 'gets it.'"
Gillis ranks near the top of her graduating class and leads both the Human Rights Initiative and the Environmental Club at the high school. She is a member of the Student Council and has been active in numerous extracurricular activities, including the tennis team. Last year she went to Nicaragua to help build homes for the poor.
Gillis will spend the summer in Gloucester before she leaves in the fall to attend Colorado College, where she plans to study environmental science.
This was the 70th Cape Ann Forum since the all-volunteer organization was founded in 2001. The next event takes place in September.
For more information, visit www.capeannforum.org.
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