Honors Awarded to Local Students in Memory of Brennan Passons

Following Friday morning mass at in Roswell, awarded two of its students with the Brennan Passons Award of Kindness and Compassion.

When , the school decided it would recognize students who exemplified Passons best characteristics each year. During its innagural year, the award was limited to the sixth grade and presented to two students who had attended school with Passons since kindergarten.

Middle school teachers overwhelmingly felt that the students recognized with the award continued in Brennan's footsteps all year long by showing kindness, consideration and accepting everyone for who they are, since these are the qualities that students continually relate to Passons whenever they speak about her. 

This year the school chose two of Passons closest friends to each receive the award: Katie Saxon, who headed up the Asthma Awareness Club, and Grace Richters.

Next year the award will be presented to one student in the fourth through eighth grades.

Also outside of the scope of the award, the Passons family publicly recognized Reagan Shu during the award ceremony for his efforts at raising money for the Brennan Passons Memorial Fund, which was started by her family and contributes funding toward the school's arts programs.

"We realized his efforts were outside of the classroom, but this will continue on for years to come and has great potential for growth," Sarah Passons told Roswell Patch.

Shu, a friend to Passons since their preschool days, single handedly piloted a program he calls "Batting for Brennan." In the end he had 60 sponsors willing to pay for plays he made on the baseball field, garnering commitments of $6,000, and with corporate gift matching incentives to potentially raise $10,000.

Next year "Batting for Brennan" will be open to anyone interested in participating in the program.