With application season upon us, we caught up with one of the original NESA scholarship recipients

NESA scholarship application season is here.

Since 1984, the National Eagle Scout Association has been granting scholarships to Eagle Scouts who choose to continue their educational journey in college.

Click here to learn all you need to know about applying for a scholarship.

To mark the 40^th anniversary of NESA scholarships, my friends in the official alumni association for Eagle Scouts helped me track down one of the original recipients from 1984.

Mario Benoit is a vice president at Architects Alliance of Acadiana, an architectural services firm in Opelousas, Louisiana. Back in 1984, Benoit knew he wanted to go to college but was unsure how he would pay for it because his dad had just been laid off from a job he’d had for 19 years. He decided to apply for a NESA scholarship, and was one of 31 Eagle Scouts to earn scholarship money that year.

“I was so excited and relieved,” Benoit says. “It was a ray of hope for us as a family.”

“Receiving the scholarship was life-changing”

Benoit went on to study architecture at what was then called the University of Southwest Louisiana (now known as the University of Louisiana at Lafayette).

After working at a couple of different firms, he eventually helped start Architects Alliance of Acadiana, which provides architectural services such as feasibility studies, master planning, schematic design and full architectural design services for buildings for residential, commercial, government and business use.

“Receiving the scholarship was life-changing,” Benoit says. “My grandfather was a sharecropper for the first part of his life, so my dad grew up on the farm and was unable to go to college. But I was able to go because of his and my mom’s prompting, support and good life decisions.”

Years later, Benoit served as an adult leader with Scouts BSA Troop 162 and as a den leader and Cubmaster for Cub Scout Pack 162, both in Lafayette, Louisiana.

“My experiences in Scouting were life-changing and very formative, and I have to say that it has helped me to be the man that I am today,” Benoit says. “Now I am trying to make good decisions and choices to help influence my children and their lives and hopefully my grandchildren’s lives.”

“I am thankful”

In 2024, NESA awarded scholarships to 69 Eagle Scouts, thanks in large part to generous donors who’ve chosen to establish endowments for the scholarships.

“I am thankful for all the people who donated the money for the scholarship I received and for all the people that made the decision to award it to me,” Benoit says. “God bless them all.

“They don’t know how much they have influenced my life’s direction.”

This year’s application portal closes Jan. 31, 2025.

Click here for more information on the NESA scholarships available for 2024-25.

Photos courtesy of Mario Benoit