23rd Annual King Kullen Scholarship Awards Program Announces Recipients

HUNTINGTON, N.Y. - Sept. 4, 2013 - PRLog -- King Kullen Grocery Co., Inc. (Bethpage, NY) announced the names of 78 scholarship recipients during its 23^rd Annual King Kullen Scholarship Awards Program.  King Kullen employees at the company’s 41 store locations -- and their children 16 years of age or older – are encouraged each year to submit applications for consideration.  The top 2013 awardee, Samantha Greenidge, received a $2,500 scholarship; 25 King Kullen employees received scholarships of $250 each; and 52 children of King Kullen employees received scholarships of $250 each.

         “We are a family-owned and operated company and King Kullen employees are part of that family,” said King Kullen Co-President Brian Cullen.  “It is wonderful to support and encourage each other in the pursuit of goals, especially in education and community service.”

         Samantha Greenidge, this year’s top $2,500 scholarship awardee, is a part-time bookkeeper at Huntington’s Halesite King Kullen store.  She will head to Iona College this fall — one of only 20 freshmen chosen for the honors program.  She graduated this year from Huntington High School with a 100.24-weighted average after an Advanced Placement course load in English, Government, Microeconomics, Calculus, Statistics and Physics, and Honors Spanish.  A member of the Math, Science, English and Spanish National Honor Societies, she nevertheless also found time to volunteer.

         In addition to working part-time, from eighth grade through her senior year, Ms. Greenidge averaged 50 hours per year as a volunteer for ALS, a charity close to her heart as her father passed away from ALS when she was 10 years old.  Through high school clubs, she spent time with the elderly in nursing homes and working on peer issues of bullying and discrimination.

         She played volleyball all four years of high school and was a volunteer coach to a 7^th and 8^th grade volleyball team.

“My mother and my brother are my life models and King Kullen, a definite business model,” said Ms. Greenidge.  “They recognize employees for hard work and a drive to succeed -- not only on the job, but in the greater world.”

         The list of $250 scholarship recipients is published each year in King Kullen Grocery’s monthly newsletter.

“King Kullen is proud to recognize employees and family members who are involved in their schools, their communities, and who wish to achieve goals of attaining advanced education,” said King Kullen Co-President J. Donald Kennedy.

Headquartered in Bethpage, New York, King Kullen Grocery Company, Inc. is recognized by the Smithsonian Institution as America's first supermarket.  Founded in 1930 by Michael J. Cullen, King Kullen today employs more than 4,000 people and operates 41 stores and four Wild by Nature markets across Long Island.