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One 6.5-kilometre walk for Concordians, one giant leap for students

The 28th annual Shuffle makes a big impact on students
August 16, 2017
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By Matthew Scribner


For Cristina Esposito, aviation runs in the family.

“My dad always wanted to be a pilot and he never managed to because it was expensive at the time for him to go to flight school,” says the John Molson School of Business student. “So he maintained that interest in the industry, always reading up on it, and he would educate me on what’s going on. I knew since I was a kid that I wanted to go into the aerospace and aviation field.”

Cristina Esposito John Molson School of Business student Cristina Esposito is one of 800 talented Concordia students to earn a Shuffle scholarship since the walkathon kicked off 28 years ago. | Photo credit: Concordia University

Now her dreams are well on their way to coming true. Esposito is going into her second year in the Department of Supply Chain and Business Technology Management. She is in the co-op program and her placement at Quebec aerospace giant Bombardier in Montreal begins in the fall. She hopes the program will lead to a career in aerospace and aviation.

And it’s all possible thanks to the Concordia Shuffle.

The Shuffle walkathon has raised nearly $1.4 million and benefited more than 800 Concordia students like Esposito since it started 28 years ago. The annual event brings students, faculty, staff and alumni together at Concordia’s Sir George Williams Campus to walk the 6.5 kilometres to Loyola Campus — all to raise money for student scholarships and bursaries.

Winning any scholarship is good news, yet the fact that the money is raised by the Concordia community makes receiving a Shuffle scholarship particularly gratifying.

“It made me realize that someone other than my parents actually recognized the hard work that I’ve put into my schoolwork,” Esposito says. “It’s really nice to have that recognition.”

Lauranne Gendron-Cloutier, a first-year Department of Psychology student, agrees that acknowledgement for hard work is a great feeling.

Lauranne Gendron-Cloutier “It’s touching for people to go out and sweat for me. I work really hard for my grades and for it to be recognized feels really awesome,” says psychology student Lauranne Gendron-Cloutier of her Shuffle award. | Photo courtesy: Lauranne Gendron-Cloutier

“It’s touching for people to go out and sweat for me,” she says. “I work really hard for my grades and for it to be recognized feels really awesome.”

Gendron-Cloutier wants to be a psychologist. She had already paid the fees to attend another university when she received the news about her Shuffle award.

“It made me look more into what Concordia could offer, and I ended up choosing Concordia, not only because of the award, but because a lot of the other elements were actually better for what I wanted to achieve and how I wanted to have my university experience,” she says. “So it actually helped me find the right path.”

The scholarship also opened new doors for Gendron-Cloutier, including a semester abroad in the Netherlands next winter.

Zachary Laflamme, a Department of Finance student, says the Shuffle scholarship gave him more freedom to pursue his interests when he was starting at Concordia last year.

Zachary Laflamme A Shuffle scholarship provided Department of Finance student Zachary Laflamme more freedom to pursue his interests when he was starting at Concordia last year. | Photo courtesy: Zachary Laflamme

“Throughout CEGEP I had been working about 20 hours a week on top of school. I didn’t really want to do that in university because I wanted to make sure I’d be able to maintain good grades,” he says. “At Concordia, I was able to focus on my studies full-time because of the scholarship.”

Now Laflamme has time to be a part of the John Molson Competition Committee, which is appropriate because it was the case competition program that attracted him to Concordia in the first place.

He begins his own co-op internship at the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec in Montreal in the fall. He believes that job and his other placements will clarify where in the world of finance he wants to build his career.

Laflamme, like Esposito and Gendron-Cloutier, looks forward to the day when he can give back to Shuffle. “I will encourage and promote the raising of funds for students.”

#CUshuffle  #CUgiving



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