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VFW awards Sayville teen for his ‘What Makes America Great’ essay

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Sayville Middle School eighth-grader Josiah George has earned a VFW Patriot’s Pen Youth Essay Merit Award for his essay explaining “What Makes America Great?” Sayville School District announced.

Josiah was presented a certificate and received a $100 scholarship prize recently during a local VFW Post 433 ceremony.

“Josiah wrote this essay for my class … He put in a lot of time and dedication to this, and I am so proud of his efforts!” Josiah’s middle school social studies teacher Janine Vogel said.

A bevy of prizes awarded

More than 100,000 students in grades 6-8 enter the Patriot’s Pen essay contest annually, organizers of the contest said. The first-place winner from each state competes for national awards totaling $50,000, with each first-place state winner receiving a minimum of $500 at the national level.

The national first-place winner receives a $5,000 scholarship, along with an all-expense-paid trip to Washington, D.C., this March.

The essay contest encourages middle school students to examine America’s history, along with their own experiences in modern American society, by drafting a 300- to 400-word essay, expressing their views based on a patriotic theme chosen by the VFW commander-in-chief. The theme selected this year was “What Makes America Great”

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