Kourtnee Henderson received a $2,500 scholarship for helping local students this summer, but the Simpsonville teen says her work in the community isn’t finished.
Henderson, a senior at Fountain Inn High School and a recent Laurens Electric Cooperative delegate on the 2026 Washington Youth Tour, was awarded an R.D. Bennett Community Service Scholarship after organizing a school supply drive for students at Washington Center in Greenville. The school, which serves students with intellectual and physical disabilities, received 1,250 school supply items, thanks to Henderson’s BridgeAbility project.
“I noticed when I volunteered there my junior year that they didn’t have many supplies,” Henderson says. “It was a really fun process—a long, hardworking process.”
Before launching her own drive, Henderson wanted to learn from people who had already done it well. She volunteered at the YMCA’s Back to School Bash earlier in the summer, helping with setup and distribution. Henderson spent more than 65 hours on her project between June and August, contacting dozens of local businesses and organizing a collection event in downtown Greenville.
“The most rewarding part of the project was seeing the smiles on the kids’ faces when they received their supplies,” says Henderson. “Knowing that something I organized had a direct, visible impact on their excitement going into the school year made all of the planning and coordination worth it.”
Part of Henderson’s process was launching a nonprofit, Brightstart Foundation, to support children in Greenville County. She recruited 14 student volunteers, training them at bi-monthly meetings on how to reach out to businesses and coordinate outreach with local schools.
“I started the foundation so high schoolers can know more about the different educational volunteer opportunities and how they can help,” says Henderson. “The next thing we’re going to do is to send volunteers to read books to children and teach them about leadership.”
Henderson completed her project after attending the electric cooperatives’ annual Washington Youth Tour, which sends rising high school seniors to Washington, D.C., for a week each summer. Henderson was among seven of those students who went on to complete a community service project upon their return from the nation’s capital. Alena Goveas of Lexington received a $5,000 scholarship for her winning project, Senior Summer Self-Care.
“This is unique because we’ve rarely awarded a second-place prize,” says Van O’Cain, public and member relations director for The Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina. “But Kourtnee was deserving of recognition because of how hard she worked on her project and its impact on the students she helped.”
Henderson wasn’t the only Laurens Electric delegate to catch judges’ attention. Fellow applicant Sara Beth Field’s project transformed an unused outdoor area at Laurens County Memorial Home into a shaded courtyard for residents, guests and staff. Field raised more than $6,300 in donations and recruited volunteers to level garden beds and clear old trees.
The R.D. Bennett Community Service Scholarship is named for the first general manager of The Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina. Bennett believed that electric cooperatives should support their local communities beyond providing power. The scholarship is given annually to a Washington Youth Tourist who best exemplifies the cooperative principle of “Concern for Community.”