Leaders and Achievers Scholarships Now Open

Since 2001, Comcast NBCUniversal has awarded more than $33 million in scholarships to approximately 30,000 students to help them pursue higher education. Read below for a profile of one of our scholarship winners.

For a student like Anaya Benzan, it has always been natural to give back to her community. 

While attending Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, Anaya was passionate about both academics and leadership in the community. She participated in the school’s Peer Conflict Mediation Program and served as president of the after-school club until her graduation, helping. classmates learn to reduce conflict through conversation. She also brought the club to additional middle schools to train eighth grade mediators.

“It’s a rewarding experience to see how grateful someone is when they leave mediation with a new perspective,” Anaya says.  Even the Boston Transit Police have noticed Anaya’s work, asking her to mediate physical altercations between youth.

In addition to her volunteering with the mediation program, Anaya was an athlete, volunteered with Habitat for Humanity, and worked as an office assistant in Harvard’s Department of Economics and in its Opportunity Insight Economic Lab.

It is because of Anaya’s leadership and dedication to civic involvement that she was selected for a Leaders and Achievers scholarship in the summer of 2019.  At the awards ceremony, she learned she would receive a $10,000 Founders Scholarship, named in honor of Ralph J. Roberts, Founder and Chairman Emeritus of Comcast Corporation.

The evening was impactful for Anaya, “I remember being at the Massachusetts State House for the award ceremony, not knowing what to expect,” Anaya recalls. “Then when NBC10 Boston’s Latoyia Edwards began to describe the recipients’ involvement, I couldn’t believe that she was talking about me.”

Now a freshman at Bucknell University’s College of Arts and Sciences, Anaya sees how the scholarship has impacted her. “The ceremony was more about our futures than what we have done in the past. Having that welcoming community has motivated me to continue to make a difference.”