Celebrating the Triumph of the Human Spirit Over Adversity
In December 2021, the Greenfield Everyday Heroes Foundation and the Northern New York Community Foundation formed a partnership to bring the Everyday Heroes Award to Watertown High School.
Beginning with the class of 2022, the Greenfield Everyday Heroes Foundation will recognize and award a graduating senior who has shown the courage and character to achieve success regardless of the extreme obstacles placed in front of them. The Everyday Heroes Award is a $5,000 scholarship. In partnership with the Community Foundation, a $5,000 matching grant will enable an additional award.
The two foundations share common values, and both seek to enhance the communities they serve in supporting students to achieve their dreams of higher education. Since 1995, Greenfield Everyday Heroes Foundation has been supporting graduating high school seniors from select schools in the Northeast that have shown the courage and character to achieve success, regardless of the extreme obstacles placed in front of them.
About the Award
The Greenfield Everyday Heroes Award was created in 1995 and is awarded to a graduating senior who has shown the courage and character to achieve success regardless of the barriers and obstacles placed in front of them. These barriers and obstacles come in all forms: homelessness, serious physical or mental illness, incarcerated parents, abuse, or other extreme hardships.
The award recognizes and celebrates these students who exemplify the triumph of the human spirit over adversity. Each has their own story of how they overcame their adversity to achieve success. They are role models, who also give back to their community. They are going off to college, in many cases the first in their families to do so, with the grit and perseverance it takes to overcome the tough cards they were dealt in life.
Greenfield Everyday Heroes Foundation presently supports students at six Northeast high schools. Watertown High School is the first in New York State. The Greenfield Everyday Heroes Foundation and the Community Foundation work closely with guidance counselors at Watertown High School to accept applications for the award annually. Selected students will receive a $5,000 scholarship to pursue post-secondary education at an accredited two- or four-year college, or a technical, trade or vocational school.
Apply for the Greenfield Everyday Heroes Award
Members of the Watertown High School Class of 2022 may apply for the Greenfield Everyday Heroes Award by Sunday, April 10, 2022. Click the button below to apply today.
The Northern New York Community Foundation and the Greenfield Everyday Heroes Foundation will also work together to identify students who qualify for the Everyday Heroes Award through the Community Foundation’s 2022-2023 Freshman Scholarship application.
Anne Lantz, GEHF Executive Director
Anne Lantz was born in Watertown, New York. Empowering students at Watertown High School is meaningful to Anne because of her family’s ties to the city and region. She has deep multi-generational roots in Watertown. Anne’s grandparents, John Wyatt and Grace Uhlein and Dr. Howard and Katherine Cooper, and parents, Wyatt and Sandy Uhlein, grew up in Watertown. Anne’s sister and brother were also born in Watertown.
Despite moving away from Watertown when she was young, Ms. Lantz often returned to Northern New York to spend holidays with family and friends and summers in Chaumont and on the St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario, where her parents owned a home on Grenadier Island. Her parents were longtime members of the Crescent Yacht Club, and Anne fondly recalls many adventures with a large, tight-knit group of friends and family. Her mother recently passed away and launching the Greenfield Everyday Heroes Award at Watertown High School is a special way to honor her parents and grandparents while giving back to a community that provided so much for her family.
Professionally, Anne has served as Executive Director of the Greenfield Everyday Heroes Foundation since 1999. She began her career in financial services, founding Prism Group, LLC (financial advisory), and later at Deloitte as a tax advisor and financial planner (CFP). Anne then joined Greenfield Consulting Group where she served on the senior management team overseeing legal, human resources, and talent acquisition. Anne earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Vermont.
Anne Lantz discusses what makes Everyday Heroes special:
Andy Greenfield, GEHF Founder
Andy Greenfield started Everyday Heroes in 1995 and has been actively involved with the foundation for the past 27 years. Andy spent his career as an entrepreneur, founding and selling several companies in the marketing services industry. In 2009, he founded Thought into Action, Colgate University’s entrepreneurship program. Andy presently serves on the Colgate University Board of Trustees.
Since 2014, Andy has been a General Partner of TIA VENTURES, an early-stage venture capital firm. Andy earned a bachelor’s degree from Colgate University, and a master’s and ABD from Brown University.