The Intense Intestines Foundation would like to thank all of the applicants who applied for the first IIF scholarship. Our mission is to help those young adults who suffer from inflammatory bowel disease reach their higher education goals and that wouldn’t have been possible without all of your continuous, and much appreciated support.

Living with IBD (ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease) is incredibly challenging at any age, but when you layer on school, the difficulties can often become insurmountable. Flare ups, hospitalizations, surgeries, and a wide range of other issues that occur alongside an IBD diagnosis all hinder a person’s ability to graduate in the four years that it typically takes students to get through college. The frustration that also comes with needing to take incompletes, withdraw from classes or entire semesters on a whim can leave a person feeling incredibly discouraged that their academic career is suffering due to reasons outside of their control. While we currently can only award one scholarship per semester, there were a number of outstanding applicants that were very much deserving of a little extra help. The stories we heard from all of the applicants about their journeys and how much they’ve done to overcome their disease was incredibly inspiring and heartfelt. We appreciate all applicants taking the time to share with us one of the most (if not the most) vulnerable side of themselves.

We would like to congratulate Lauren Beach, the winner of the Intense Intestines Foundation’s Scholarship, but highly encourage all of the applicants to reapply for upcoming semesters. We look forward to hearing from you all soon and would like to thank all of the people who have helped to make this scholarship program possible.

Please check out http://intenseintestines.wordpress.com/ for additional blog posts and updates on the scholarship programs.