Senior Named Rise Global Winner

In a dramatic announcement before millions on national television, Flatley Scholar Jenn Uche ‘22 learned that she won a highly-selective Rise for the World global award.
Rise is a $1 billion philanthropic initiative recently launched by Google co-founder Eric Schmidt and his wife, Wendy, to “find and support global talent.”

The honor is an accomplishment of incredible magnitude and long-term implications. According to the Rise website, Rise is “a program that finds brilliant people who need opportunity and supports them for life as they work to serve others . . . and offers a lifetime of benefits including scholarships, mentorship, access to career development opportunities, funding, and more as Global Winners work toward solving humanity’s most pressing problems.”

More than 50,000 teens from 170 countries applied, addressing how they would work to solve one particular problem. “Project Lux,” as Jenn has named it, is a work in progress. Her ultimate goal for the website and companion podcast is to build community through art and advocacy, with writing, Jenn’s long-practiced passion, at the core. In doing so, she hopes to inspire others to reflect on the power of creative beauty, influencing them to light up the world along the way. She wrote, produced and recorded the fictional podcast to educate her peers on issues facing our society, including discrimination and justice reform.

Read about the application and selection process, along with award details, in the Rise press release, where Jenn’s project is also mentioned. 

Jenn learned that she is one of just 100 Rise Global Winners on live television, as she and four other finalists,  each participating remotely, were featured in a three-minute Good Morning America segment about Rise. The show’s producers invited the teens to discuss their Rise applications. None knew they’d actually been selected as recipients until, at the segment’s conclusion, Eric Schmidt shared the news with them via video message on a split screen. ABC News also published a piece that highlights Jenn as well as her project and what she hopes it will achieve. 

“Jenn embodies the Montrose mission,” said Head of School Katie Elrod. “She recognizes that her talents are really gifts from God, and that her call to greatness is to put them at the service of others for a noble purpose. With this new project, we know she will unify diverse groups, make a contribution and shape our changing world for the better."

Elrod continued, saying, “It was incredibly fitting that, when I went looking for Jenn earlier this afternoon to congratulate her in person, I found her sitting at the teacher's desk in Room 10, surrounded by eager Middle School students, all of them working hard on stories for The Walrus [the Montrose literary magazine]. Jenn's magnetic personality as well as her skills and talents are destined for truly transcendent horizons.”

She commended the Montrose senior, saying, “The world needs so much more peace and joy, and this is exactly what you’re bringing, Jenn.”

Jenn’s mother, Jane, credited Montrose faculty and staff, saying that it is because Jenn is at Montrose that she was prepared academically and spiritually to take on this challenge. 

“It is through the time she’s able to take in Mass to pray, to receive the Eucharist, and to reflect on her vocation in the light of Christ that she’s able to work at what she’s doing,'' she said. “With whatever she endeavors to do, she has her teachers to support her. She has her teachers to challenge her. She has the entire Montrose family there to shape and support her. She would not be the same person she is today without Montrose School.”

“Our faculty deserve recognition for this student achievement, too,” Elrod said. “Their tireless and loving work, on behalf of our students, is just one example of how their gifts as educators are inspiring our students to sow peace and joy in a world that sorely needs it.”

Uche has long demonstrated significant academic and entrepreneurial potential, having earned a full scholarship to Montrose thanks to the generosity of Braintree-based The Flatley Foundation in 2019. 
 
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