Fanshawe student Nita Dunn was announced as the winner of this year's Bootlegger Generation B Scholarship for Life.

The $10,000 scholarship is awarded annually to a young-adult who is involved in activities and projects that strengthen their ties to their local community and challenge them to grow as a leader.

“I just did it to see,” Dunn said, explaining her decision to apply for the scholarship. “I didn't go in there thinking ‘I've got this, I know I'm going to win,' I just did this to see if there was a chance.”

Dunn, a Business Marketing student, has spent a lot of time volunteering with charities in Huntsville, as well as working with hockey in the area. In high school she started a girls hockey team and a Christmas-time teddy bear drive for children.

“I started my own girls hockey team,” explained Dunn. “I started it, fundraised, got donations, and I made the community aware and got everyone involved. My principal actually approached me about it, he said he wanted to start a team but didn't know who would do it, who would start it, so I took part and did it myself.”

A student was chosen to represent each Bootlegger store across the country, and then taken to either Vancouver or Toronto, depending on which side of the country they were from, to take part in one of the two photo shoots.

“It was fun because I'd never done a photo shoot before,” Dunn said. “It was a day event and they had food and games, activities we could do as a group because there was 13 of us at my photo shoot. We were all friends, we talked and just hung out for the day, it was fun.”

And proving that she more than deserved the scholarship, Dunn has pledged to give $1,000 of the award right back to charity, $500 to both the Almaguin Hockey Association and the Huntsville Huskies rep team. The remainder of the scholarship will be put towards her college tuition.