Two Riverside County graduating high school seniors who plan careers in health care are receiving scholarships from National Black Grads through a donation from UnitedHealthcare.

They are Amari Jenkins, a senior at John W. North High School in Riverside, and Seraiah Kinslow, a senior at Centennial High School in Corona.

National Black Grads is a local nonprofit organization that does fundraising and distributes scholarships to area youths, according to a news release.

The chairman of the group’s fundraising unit, Theandrea Coleman, is a network program manager for UnitedHealthcare and she brought the idea of supporting National Black Grads to the health-care company.

Jenkins, an honors student, has been accepted into UC San Diego’s chemistry program. She plans to eventually earn a doctorate and work in the health-care industry serving underrepresented communities, according to the news release.

For Jenkins, the dream of a medical career grew from an injury earlier in her life that forced her into physical rehabilitation. She recalls how later, during her career as a track-and-field athlete, she began to appreciate more fully the rehab help she had been given, and how that drove her initial interest in science toward her high school’s sports medicine program, according to the news release.

Kinslow will attend Cal Poly Pomona and major in chemistry, though she has also been accepted elsewhere, including Tuskegee University in Alabama. She plans a medical career focusing on cardiology, according to the news release.

She observed family members who had debilitating illnesses and chronic diseases as she was growing up. She is interested in learning about and working with new technological advancements in medicine and  bridging those with natural remedies, according to the news release.

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, National Black Grads has had to reconsider its usual end-of-the-school-year events, a breakfast at which the scholarships are awarded and a graduation ceremony at the Cal State San Bernardino stadium. The breakfast may still be held at a later date, but it will probably not be possible to hold the graduation ceremony, according to the news release.

For information about National Black Grads, go to nationalblackgrad.org.