ALPENA — The Alpena Alcona Area Credit Union (AAACU) has announced the return of its annual scholarship program. The AAACU Scholarship committee will award a minimum of ten $1000 scholarships this year.

This program is open to all graduating seniors or thirteenth- year, early college program graduates.

To qualify, applicants must also be a resident of Michigan, enroll in a full-time college or other continuing education program after high school graduation, and become an AAACU member before a scholarship is disbursed.

In the past few years, due to the overwhelming number of impressive applications, the committee has selected 25 scholarship awardees for a total of $25,000 given back to students.

The application is now available at www.aaacu.com. To apply, students must complete the online application and provide the following:

– Two personal examples of how financial literacy has impacted them in complete essay format, one essay with an introduction, body and conclusion that has a minimum of 400 words, and written in your own words. No use of Artificial Intelligence is allowed.

– A copy of their high school transcript

– Two teacher recommendations

– One other outside recommendation, such as an employer, church, etc.

– Applicants must be an active user of the Zogo financial literacy app through AAACU and have completed at least 10 modules of their choice. For more information on the app visit https://zogo.com/aaacu.

The credit union is proud to offer this opportunity for graduating seniors to kickstart their futures and set them up for success as they begin their post-secondary education, whether in a traditional college setting, trade school or another kind of continuing education.