Bolt Announced as Amanda Harris Memorial Scholarship Recipient

Second-year student Mackenzie Bolt (North Little Rock, Ark.) has been awarded the Amanda Harris Memorial Scholarship.

The Amanda Harris Memorial Scholarship was established in the memory of Clinton School graduate Amanda Harris, who passed away in September 2016. Now in its second year, the scholarship is annually awarded to a Clinton School student committed to working with a community partner organization on a Capstone project focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.

Bolt’s Capstone project is in partnership with the Central Arkansas Harm Reduction Project, a Little Rock-based organization that seeks to end opioid overdose deaths in Arkansas and provide public health services to underserved communities.

“We are working to reduce HIV transmission and overdose deaths in Central Arkansas through peer-run direct services for people who are impacted by the War on Drugs,” Bolt said. “In addition to this, we also do street outreach on Wednesdays, during which we drive around Little Rock providing food and other supplies to our unhoused community members.”

Bolt’s project includes working with CAHRP to make the organization more financially sustainable, including applying for grants and planning fundraisers, but also includes developing intake forms, feedback forms, and a system for service tracking.

“This data will be useful for receiving grant funding, but more importantly, it will also ensure we are effectively serving our community,” Bolt said.

Bolt is a graduate of UA Little Rock with degrees in anthropology and philosophy.

Harris was one of the first openly gay students to enroll at the Clinton School of Public Service. Her field service work included work on community development, women’s empowerment, and rural heritage development in the Arkansas Delta region; an independent study of LGBTQ rights and advocacy in the Czech Republic; and various work with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force/Policy Institute. She graduated from the Clinton School in 2009.

A native of Lonoke, Ark., Harris earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Central Arkansas. Before enrolling at the Clinton School, she participated in the 2007 Soulforce Equality Ride, a two-month long bus journey to promote equal rights in public schools throughout America.

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