NORWALK, Conn. — A city-based nonprofit recently awarded 15 scholarships totaling $183,000 to exceptional college and high school students, including 12 recent Norwalk Public Schools graduates.
Each year, the Kevin M. Eidt Scholarship Fund awards scholarships to both Norwalk Public Schools and Boston College students.
The scholarships—the largest of which was a $130,000 award presented to a member of the Norwalk High School Class of 2025—are given in memory of 1996 Norwalk High School co-valedictorian Kevin Eidt, who passed away from cardiac arrest in January 1997 while playing an intramural basketball game during his freshman year at Boston College.
“For the past 29 years, a caring and compassionate community responded to Kevin’s passing by creating, growing, and sustaining his scholarship fund,” said Christian Eidt, Kevin’s father and the director of the scholarship fund. “Kevin was an exceptional young man who accomplished things beyond his years, touching the hearts and minds of not just his peers but the many adults he interacted with.”
The loss of a child is “an unimaginable tragedy,” said Christian Eidt.
“Not to ensure his memory and spirit will be an incentive for others to follow in his footsteps would just be an additional tragedy, so we founded his scholarship fund, recognizing the accomplishments of others in the areas which Kevin participated and excelled,” he explained.
Winners this year include 2025 Norwalk High School graduate Summer Bosch, who was awarded the $130,000 Kevin M. Eidt Norwalk High School Scholarship, which is given to the student “judged as the most outstanding senior in the Norwalk High School Class of 2025,” according to the scholarship fund.
Kyla Sanon, another recent NHS grad who will attend Sacred Heart University this fall, was awarded the $5,000 Marching Band Scholarship as a “four-year member of the Marching Band, in good standing, whose combination of commitment and dedication to the band program best represents the band and Norwalk High School,” according to the fund.
Matthew Rinaldi, a P-TECH grad who will attend UConn this fall, was the recipient of the $5,000 Norwalk Community Service Scholarship “for giving back to the community with over 1,200 hours of service as a peer tutor, in fundraising initiatives for school lunch programs, coaching youth basketball, and assisting at baseball clinics,” according to the fund.
On May 19, Norwalk High School announced Kathryn Romano as the 2025 Kevin M. Eidt Distinguished Student Speaker for the June 11 graduation ceremony, according to the fund.
Romano was “memorialized, in spoken and written references, as the Kevin M. Eidt Distinguished Student Speaker” during graduation and will receive a $3,000 scholarship, noted the fund.
The $2,000 Scholar-Athlete Scholarship was awarded to recent NHS grad Ally Lanzarotto “for outstanding contributions to Norwalk High School both as a scholar and an athlete,” according to the fund.
Lanzarotto, who will attend Penn State University this fall, was a four-year starter for the Bears’ varsity softball and volleyball teams while maintaining a cumulative GPA over 4.1.
Recent NHS graduate Konstantinos Panagiotidis, who will attend UConn this fall, was recognized with a $2,000 Special Achievement Scholarship “for his accomplishments reflecting Kevin’s values,” according to the fund.
The $2,000 Marching Band Academic Achievement Scholarship (Norwalk High School recipient) was awarded to Jason Hong, who will attend UConn this fall.
Hong earned the honor as a “four-year member of the Marching Band, in good standing, with the highest cumulative academic average,” according to the fund.
The $2,000 Marching Band Academic Achievement Scholarship (P-TECH recipient) was given to another student attending UConn this fall, Daniel Helwig.
Helwig earned the honor as a “four-year member of the Marching Band, in good standing, with the highest cumulative academic average,” said the fund.
The $2,000 Orchestra Scholarship was awarded to P-TECH grad Brock Newman, who will attend Lehigh University, “for outstanding contributions to the orchestra program,” said the fund.
Three students who were finalists for the $5,000 Norwalk Community Service Scholarship were awarded $1,000 scholarships.
Those students are Sabrina Arastu, a Center for Global Studies grad who will attend Williams College; Chynna Kelly, a Brien McMahon graduate who will matriculate to Penn State University; and Kate Putterman, a Norwalk High School grad who will attend the University of Delaware.
“Each year’s group of recipients are unique, and every year the scholarship recipients are the ‘best of the best’ from their class across the spectrum of academics, athletics, arts and community and religious service,” said Christian Edit. “Every one of Kevin’s 251 scholarship recipients [since the fund’s inception] have a special place in our family’s hearts as they are a reflection of Kevin and this reflection ensures Kevin will still be with us as long as we hold him in our memory and tell his story.”
Bosch—the winner of the $130,000 scholarship, which will be split up over her four years at Princeton—said representing Kevin Eidt and all he stood for is an important part of being named a scholarship winner.
“The whole point of the scholarship is to honor students that were like him, but I think just remembering his legacy and carrying it on, as well as his hard work, perseverance and dedication in this very building [Norwalk High] is something that is kind of inspiring to me,” she told Nancy on Norwalk in April.
Three Boston College students (two from New York and one from Massachusetts) were also awarded Kevin Eidt scholarships totaling $42,000, including the Boston College Emerging Leader Program Scholarship, the Boston College Carroll School of Management Scholarship, and the Boston College Emergency Medical Services Kevin M. Eidt Excellence Award.
For more information, visit https://kevinsfund.org/.
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