Foreign language camp scholarships available for North Shore students
A Lake County businessman and his family are funding scholarships for students from the North Shore who are looking to work on a foreign language over the summer.
Concordia Language Villages Program Director Amanda Hand told WTIP that Gary and Betty Zinter of Silver Bay have set up a scholarship fund at the camp, offering funding to students from Lake and Cook Counties. The scholarships will cover up to 90% of the cost of either a one-week or two-week course at any of the summer language camps organized by Concordia College.
Students who attend one of the Concordia Language Villages, which are located in Bemidji, have a variety of languages and camps of different lengths to choose from. The camps that last two or four weeks can also count toward school credit.
Hand said the Zinter’s daughter is an alumna of the language villages, and that they established the scholarship fund in order to allow more students from the North Shore to have the option to attend them. While students must come from Lake or Cook County, beyond that requirement, the scholarship has few restrictions.
“It’s not limited to people under a certain annual income level,” Hand said, “Which most of our in-house scholarships are need-based, and Gary wanted to go beyond that, because he wanted to make sure North Shore kids were getting caught by the scholarship. And he’s just passionate about that. And so it’s set up for Lake County and Cook County.”
The first camps held by the language villages for this summer begin on June 9, but Hand said that there are camps throughout the summer, and rolling registration for the programs. She said they will continue to offer the scholarships to North Shore students as long as funds are available.
More information about the language programs and scholarship can be found on the Concordia Language Villages website.
WTIP’s CJ Heithoff spoke to Amanda Hand on North Shore Morning. Audio of that interview is below.
Kirsten Wisniewski May 14, 2025
