Mother, volunteer, former brewer, Business student and now, award-winner.
Annika Kirk has many titles and is used to juggling work, life and every other curveball that comes her way, which helped her shine when she applied for the Colleges and Institutes Canada (CICan) Paul and Gerri Charette Bursary Award.
Kirk received the news in a unique way: Okanagan College President Neil Fassina announced she won the bursary during a meeting of the Board of Governors, of which she is a student representative.
“It was a complete shock and I cried,” she said. “I called my husband and he cried. It was really quite wonderful.”
In her third year of Bachelor of Business Administration studies, Kirk was one out of seven applicants from OC and one of 20 recipients of the bursary nationally. She returned to school in the fall of 2020, having worked as a brewer for seven years in Toronto and Kelowna. Knowing that an OC education could help her family start their own brewery, she jumped right into the degree program.
Kirk is set to receive $5,000 from the program; given she had just given birth to her second child, the timing couldn’t be better.
“This bursary is going to help us even more than I had anticipated,” she said. “I’m doing some casual work, but I’m in school while also getting ready to take care of a newborn with our three-year-old. It’s a lot to take on. This bursary has given us a bit of breathing room.”