A Congratulatory Howl

While August is one a popular time to visit Great Wolf Lodge, it also means “back to school”. Kindergarten, grade school, high school and college - all of the above. This fall, 11 students are heading to college with a little bit of help from our dedicated Great Wolf Lodge Pack.

When I joined the Great Wolf Resorts team, I was excited to learn more about our Great Wolf Resorts Scholarship Program. Two years ago our CEO, Kim Schaefer, took part in the CBS prime-time show “Undercover Boss”. During her time visiting our resorts, and filming segments for the show, she met Pack Members who worked at Great Wolf Lodge while attending college. Upon returning home, she shared her desire to find a way to help with the cost of tuition. From that desire, we created the scholarship program.

Last fall we held our first ever fundraising golf outing – and then we shared the news of the scholarship with the Pack Members working at our resorts, corporate offices and the reservations center.

Flash forward to today and our inaugural class of scholarship recipients has been chosen! We are awarding $48,000 to 11 deserving Great Wolf Lodge Pack Members to put toward their college education for the upcoming 2012-2013 school year. To apply for a scholarship, interested Pack Members submitted a letter of recommendation, an application and a personal essay for consideration.

I’m so excited to share that Pack Members from four Great Wolf Lodge resorts, located in Concord, N.C.; Grapevine, TX; Sandusky, OH and Traverse City, MI; as well as our reservations office in Madison, WI, make up the first group of scholarship recipients.

The entire company is proud of the more than 100 applicants and 11 recipients of this year’s scholarship. A great Howl of congratulations is extended to the following Pack Members as they pursue their higher education goals this fall:

Pack Member	Great Wolf Lodge resort	College Attending
Elena Aleman	Central Reservations Office, WI	Edgewood College
Kristina McNeill	Central Reservations Office, WI	Edgewood College
Virginia Lytton	Concord, NC	Univ. of NC at Chapel Hill
Stephanie Walton	Concord, NC	Univ. of NC at Greensboro
Kelly Swanson	Concord, NC	Univ. of NC at Chapel Hill
Alexander DeRossi	Grapevine, TX	Texas Tech University
Kedric Rose	Grapevine, TX	University of Texas at Arlington
Mackenzie Keegan	Sandusky, OH	University of Toledo
Stephanie Hollis	Sandusky, OH	Terra Community College
Natalie Radocy	Sandusky, OH	Lorain County Community College
Erin Kuhn	Traverse City, MI	Grand Valley State University

We are already looking ahead and planning for of our next class of scholarship winners. The 2^nd Annual Great Wolf Resorts Scholarship Golf Outing will take place next month here in Wisconsin – and I just know we’ll raise even more money to assist our Pack Members’ with their education.