Olivia Brown sat next to Emily in their Yearbook class at East Kentwood High School. They were friends. Olivia photographed Emily twice; once for homecoming, and once just for fun while she was practicing portrait photography. Emily said yes both times.
One of those photos became the image Emily’s family chose for her obituary. It’s also the photo we use across this foundation.
This year, the first Emily Matejovitz Scholarship goes to Olivia.
In her junior year, Olivia lost her grandfather. Three days later, she lost her childhood dog. Three months after that, she lost Emily. She wrote about that season in her application with a kind of clarity that’s hard to read and harder to forget. She called it being frozen in grief.
What she did next is what made her stand out to us.
She went to counseling and started writing. She channeled what she was carrying into a novel and other creative pursuits.
This fall, Olivia is heading to Central Michigan University to study Photojournalism with a minor in Creative Writing. She honored Emily long before she applied for this scholarship. She dedicated a page in her junior year yearbook to her, and she gave Emily’s family the photographs that they hold close to this day.
We’re grateful she applied, and grateful for the work she’s already done with the time she’s had. We hope this scholarship makes the next chapter a little easier to write.