New memorial scholarship funds at the Ventura County Community Foundation will help aspiring language teachers and volleyball players achieve their goal of receiving a college diploma.

One honors the late Stephen Devron Resnik, owner of the iconic Somis Nut House; the second was established in the memory of Ronald Mack Adams, an esteemed teacher at Fremont Intermediate School in Oxnard.

Rebecca Pecsok and her mother, Joyce Resnik, established the Stephen Devron Resnik Memorial Scholarship to honor Stephen Resnik, the Somis businessman who died in December 2009.

"My dad was a really good mentor. He was kind and gentle and willing to teach someone to learn," Pecsok said.

She believes her father would be pleased the scholarship that bears his name aids volleyball players since he was an avid beach volleyball player well into his 60s. Although others can apply for the Resnik scholarship, volleyball players are given a preference.

"We wanted to establish something for local kids, and volleyball is an under-represented sport for scholarships," Pecsok said.

"Many local people, children and adults, first learned volleyball on Carpinteria Beach because my husband cared enough to introduce them to the game," said Joyce Resnik. "He had infinite patience and enjoyed watching the players mature."

Resnik helped found the Somis Nut House with his parents in 1959. When not on the sand in Carpinteria playing volleyball, Resnik frequented the fairways of the Las Posas Country Club.

The Ronald Mack Adams Memorial Scholarship will be awarded to college seniors graduating with a degree in English or a foreign language who pursue their teaching credentials at a University of California or a California
State University campus. They must be residents of Ventura County.

Adams' interest in travel and foreign languages was sparked when he became the first exchange student to Germany from Oxnard High School. He later graduated from California State University, Northridge, with a bachelor's in
German literature and went on to earn a master's in German linguistics with an emphasis in Old High German at University of California, Santa Barbara.

Adams taught for a year at UCSB before taking a job in the Oxnard School District. He died March 10, 2010, at the age of 69 after suffering a heart attack.

Students can learn more about these and 52 other scholarship funds offering about 190 scholarship awards for the 2011-2012 academic year by visiting the foundation's website at www.vccf.org, click on apply/donate to a scholarship. Students may apply for up five scholarships with no application fee. They should make sure they are fully eligible for all scholarships they apply for by completing the online registration questionnaire component,
responding to the questions and by reviewing the 2011 Scholarship Guidelines document which describes the different scholarships and specific eligibility criteria for each.

The mandatory online registration deadline is 5 p.m. Jan. 12, 2011, and hard copies of the applications are due in the VCCF offices by 5 p.m. Jan. 14. Separate applications must be submitted for each scholarship applied for.

The VCCF offices are at 1317 Del Norte Road, Camarillo, CA 93010. For more information, contact program officer Virginia Weber at (805) 988-0196, Ext. 119, or by email at vweber@vccf.org.

VCCF is the largest provider of scholarships to Ventura County students, having awarded nearly $6 million in student aid since its founding in 1987. Last year, the community foundation granted more than $950,000 in scholarships to 335 Ventura County students.

VCCF is a family of charitable funds with combined assets of $101 million. Its mission is to promote and enable philanthropy to improve our community for good for ever, which it does through grantmaking, scholarships and leadership training programs through the Center for Nonprofit Leadership. VCCF has been certified in compliance with national standards by the Council on Foundations, the highest form of peer review in the United States. For
more information, visit vccf.org or contact VCCF at (805) 988-0196.