Meet Our 2024 Maxine R. Baker Scholarship Recipients!

The Youth Leadership Greater Washington (YLGW) program provides leadership training to youth leaders while raising their voices around critical issues in the region. Thanks to the generosity of corporate and individual sponsors, youth leaders participate in the program tuition-free.

Each program year, the LGW member-led Maxine R. Baker Scholarship Fund provides college scholarship support for select youth leaders who complete the program. While in past years, two awardees were chosen for the scholarship, this year four YLGW graduates were chosen to receive the honor, and we are proud to announce the outstanding scholarship recipients:

Lauryn is a senior at Elizabeth Seton High School. Some of her hobbies include learning new languages, tennis, cooking, and reading. Lauryn is a part of French club and innovation club and she's a member of the student council as class representative. Lauryn has played tennis since she was 8 years old, and she’s played for her high school team for her entire high school career. Her team was the runner-up for the championship two years in a row and this past year she and her team finally broke through to win the WCAC championship. She is fluent in Spanish and has been studying the language for over 8 years. Her goal is to learn 3 new languages and at the moment she is independently studying Korean. Lauryn works as a babysitter for about 5 families in her neighborhood and her passion for hair care led her to start developing a hair care business that caters to curly hair called Blissful Coils. After graduation, Lauryn plans to attend university with a major in Finance and a minor in Spanish. 

Kennedy is a senior at Bishop McNamara High School. She has maintained Sum Cum Laude honors during her 9- 11 grade years and is currently in the Fine Arts Diploma Endorsement Program for Theatre and Classical Dance. Kennedy is actively involved in all aspects of the school where she is a member of the WMAC Broadcasting program, allowing her to pursue her future career in Strategic Communications Broadcast Journalism. Giving back to her community is a true passion and it is carried out through her involvement in Girl Scouts, Delta GEMS, and accumulating over 75 service hours in her community, with one of her favorites being the Waldorf Soup Kitchen. Classical Dance has been Kennedy’s artistic activity and she has been training at The Jones Haywood Dance School for 13 years. Kennedy has a drive for leadership and strives to bring her community together, this is shown through her cross curricula involvement. She is the manager for BMHS women’s Lacrosse, an active member of the class of 2025 student council, a peer minister, and past PR officer for the International Thespian Society. She has also been inducted into the National Honor Society and the National English Honor Society. Kennedy is looking forward to her senior year and making lasting memories with her friends, helping new freshmen adapt, performing on the dance team, and of course prom! In college, she plans to major in Strategic Communications with a minor in psychology. One of her goals is to work with the NBA and increase the female presence on the screen.

Bijan is currently a senior at Georgetown Day School. He is passionate about physics (astrophysics) and has a website where he publishes his astrophotography. Bijan has been a space engineering intern at a startup called Outlyer Space since October 2023, where he is designing a ground station to contribute to the company's telemetry network. Bijan is the co-president of MEAA (the Middle Eastern and Arab Affinity Group) and the Astrophysics and Astronomy Club at his school. Bijan is working to get his amateur radio license for various projects. He has also played school and club soccer for six years. Bijan plans to go into the STEM field, with a focus on astrophysics and systems engineering. Apart from his studies, Bijan enjoys meeting with a local deepening circle/group every Sunday to discuss self-improvement while also conducting volunteer work with this group, such as teaching a STEAM (science, technology, engineering, and math) camp in New Mexico, along with local children's classes.

Maxwell is a 12th-grade student at James Madison High School. Max spends most of his time writing, a fact not at all surprising to his classmates, as he is known for his work on the JMHS Literary Magazine and his captaincy of the school's endeavors in the Virginia Creative Writing State Championship. Whenever he's out of ink, Max spends time volunteering at his local park, removing invasive species and working with Virginia lawmakers to address environmental problems in the state. On top of all that, Max is fully immersed in his school's theatre program, whether on stage in a varied list of roles or as an official theatre critic for the DC area. Lastly, Max has held a spot on his school's Academic Excellence register throughout his enrollment. Max plans on studying Public Policy and Literary Arts after high school.