Meredith Charlson, 16, has won the 2011 Girls Going Places Entrepreneurship Award.
Guardian Life Insurance Company of America, New York, sponsors the scholarship contest, which recognizes girls ages 12 to 18 who have demonstrated exceptional entrepreneurship and community service.
Charlson, who received $10,000, owns City Servers, San Mateo, Calif., a company that provides set up and clean up services for events such as dinner parties and wedding receptions.
The second-prize winner, Shannon McNamara, 18, of Basking Ridge, N.J., started Shannon’s After-school Reading Exchange (SHARE), a nonprofit program that has created four school libraries with 23,000 books in Tanzania. The libraries are used by 850 students and 45 teachers.
The third-prize winner, Taylor Davis, 14, of Miami, started The Traveling Canvas program, which provides art supplies for Miami-area schools and conducts art classes for homeless children ages 6 to 12 six times per year.
McNamara received a $5,000 scholarship. Davis received a $3,000 scholarship. Guardian also awarded 12 $1,000 scholarships.
The 2010 first-prize winner, Chelsey Schlosnagle, owns and operates Chelsey’s Gourmet Pasture Eggs, Pleasureville, Ky., a free-range egg business.