Local home builder providing scholarships for 15 Calgary high school graduates

Many who graduated high school this year are taking a break before continuing their educations, and 15 are getting help from a local homebuilder.

Prominent Homes is awarding $1,000 each to 15 Calgary high school graduates who display personal traits of determination, personal growth and perseverance rather than academic achievement alone.

The company has been handing out the Kirpal Kaur Dhindsa Memorial Scholarship for 18 years and has touched hundreds of student’s lives in that time.

“It’s not necessarily based on grades and academics, but who needs it,” said Pal Shergill, Prominent Homes president. “It doesn’t necessarily have to go for tuition but it could go for books, it could go for somebody going to SAIT mechanics who needs tools, it could go for like helping with transportation or living but just somebody that needs a leg up, needs an extra hand.

“We want to make sure that we pass that forward.”

Shergill says the scholarship is named after his grandmother, a single mother of three girls when she came to Canada from India.

“Her dad was lucky enough to believe in educating his daughters in the time when the world, the guys just got education, not the girls,” said Shergill. “She got her education because of my great grandfather and she was able to get started in a labour job (in Canada) but (also was) able to move up in her company and got jobs as like a scientist, blood analyst in labs.”

Kirpal believed deeply in the power of education to create opportunity and independence. Her story inspired a scholarship that reflects the same values that continue to guide Prominent Homes today through family, hard work, community and creating opportunities for others.

The home builder remains committed to investing in future generations through initiatives that strengthen the communities it helps build.

“It’s just exciting to make sure that we continue her legacy,” said Shergill. “Pass it on and make sure that we can get as many kids education opportunities that they deserve and just gives them a leg up to make sure that they continue to grow and provide for their families down the road.”

Navreet Bal was one of the first students to receive the scholarship in 2008 after she graduated from high school.

“It made a tremendous difference,” she said. “I’m the first person that attended university in my immediate family and it was always a goal of mine, it’s something that my entire family was working very hard to make possible for me and it was a tremendous honor and at the time, it actually covered an entire semester at University of Calgary.”

Today Bal is a mother of two children and is a regulatory lawyer in public service.

“Winning the scholarship really made me feel seen,” Bal said. “It made me feel that that the hard work I was doing was being acknowledged in some way so having that financial support was absolutely tremendous and it makes it feel more possible to pursue the path that I dreamed of but I didn’t exactly know how I would get there.”

Learn more about the scholarship here.