A local student is the recipient of the prestigious Chernoff Family Award from Queens University.

Yasi Shahidian is a grade 12 student from Portage who attends École Communautaire Gilbert-Rosset in Saint-Claude. She explains the $48,000 scholarship is awarded for leadership, creativity and community service. She says in her essays for the award she described some of the leadership activities she has been involved with at her school.

"I have helped organise monthly activities for the past four years at my school and I've also been a leader of the student council. I helped implement a mentoring program with the council and I did a lot of general volunteering with the school; such as school bus monitoring."

She shares how she feels to have won the award.

"I'm grateful that these people chose me and chose to invest in me, in my future, because they know that I will contribute well to society and that is kind of humbling, actually."

This fall Shahidian will be attending Queens University where she will be starting her bachelor of science, after which she plans to attend medical school and specialise in either neurosurgery or cardiology.

Shahidian additionally received a bursary from the Workers Compensation Board of Manitoba for a video she made describing the services they offer, as well as the P.E.O Star scholarship for an essay she wrote describing her career and education goals.