The Community Foundation’s Commitment to College Education

By Ryan G. Van Cleave

“College is changing,” says Murray Devine, the Communications and Marketing Manager at the Community Foundation of Sarasota County. “Costs are up. The challenges students face are far different than, say, ten years ago.” scholarships

He’s exactly right. And that’s why the Community Foundation formed a task force about five years ago to figure out how they can get maximum value for their robust scholarship program. They considered student loan debt, graduation rates, and many other issues. 

The conclusion? A primary area of focus has to be getting students to graduate. While it’s awesome to be able to give students money to attend college, it’s a much more meaningful thing to do all you can to ensure they leave with a degree.

Earl Young, Manager of Scholarships & Special Initiatives, reports that last year, they awarded $1.85 million in scholarships to area residents, meaning students residing in Sarasota, Manatee, Charlotte, or DeSoto counties. “We’ve got a great scholarship program here,” he says. “It’s one of the largest—if not the largest—in the entire state of Florida.” 

Young explains that the Community Foundation has three categories of scholarships. The traditional one is for students under 24. The bulk of these are high school seniors, though plenty of opportunities exist to support students already attending college. The second scholarship category is for adults, meaning students 24 and up. Much of the funding here goes to adults seeking a GED, CNA, or other certificate. This category also helps the Community Foundation’s 2-Generation work, where support is given not only to K-12 children but also their parents. The third and final scholarship category is all about special interests. “It’s for students who don’t fit into the traditional or adult learner bucket,” says Young. These scholarships have gone to students as young as 12 and as old as 30 for things like summer camps for performing artists who intend to become professionals, or special workshops that are vital to a student’s future career.

One of the student-centered things the Community Foundation has done, Young notes, is make the application process simple. There’s only one form to fill out. Once that’s done, algorithms identify all the applicable scholarships for that applicant. This is more involved than it sounds—the Community Foundation has 80+ different types of scholarships that have been funded by individual donors or organizations. And most of the awards have specific criteria that is set up by the donor which could include majors they’re studying, activities they engage in, or where they intend to attend college. “I like to say that we’ve got something for everyone,” says Young.

Once the application is earmarked to be considered for a particular scholarship, a volunteer committee of 100+ members gets to work, and no fewer than three committee members review every single application before a decision is made. This coming year, the scholarships awarded from the January 1 to March 1 application period will come close to $2 million, reports Young. With the continued commitment in supporting area education, that number is likely to keep growing. That kind of success is a clear testament to how well the Community Foundation and Young are running things.

What do these scholarships mean to the 500+ annual recipients? Just ask Brittani Froug, a Sarasota native who had “huge dreams and aspirations to go to college, to become a professional, and make a positive change in our wonderful community. But realistically, my dreams were always out of reach.” She applied for a scholarship at the Community Foundation and met Earl Young, “who turned my word upside down and advocated for my dreams to become a reality.” 

She reports: “Today, I am a cardiac nurse at Manatee Memorial Hospital. I am working full time, enrolled in the BSN program at State College of Florida, and working towards transitioning into a pediatric role in nursing in the future. The Community Foundation supported me/my education, both emotionally and financially, through my nursing prerequisites, LPN school, my RN-ASN degree, and now my RN-BSN degree, with a completion date of Summer 2019.” About what the Community Foundation’s help meant to her, she says that “their support gave me the choice to be something important, to make a difference, to contribute to our community through healthcare promotion and competent care at the hospital bedside. It gave me an opportunity to prove to myself that I was capable of pushing the limits of my own means and achieve what I set my mind to. And it allowed me to not be a product of my environment, being the first person in my immediate family to receive a college education.”

And then there’s Bree Winn, a 29-year-old area resident who had her first son three days after graduating from Palmetto High School. She began working at a Title 1 elementary school in Sarasota County as a kindergarten teacher in 2013 and taught a Community Foundation-supported Summer Slide Program at the Boys and Girls Club. In working with the Community Foundation, she learned about opportunities for adult learners to get support, and a few months later she had the financial ability to attend USF in St. Petersburg, where she received a master’s degree in Reading Education last year. “I am a first-grade teacher, an after-school ESOL tutor, and the mother of two amazing sons,” she says, “who is pursuing a Doctor of Education degree.”

Devine notes that Young’s commitment to student success—like that of Froug and Winn—is incredible. “He often knows more about each student than their school guidance counselors. He helps them make a good decision on where to go and what to major in. He helps develop their college/education strategy,” Devine says. “Students write to him all throughout the year. And often after they graduate, they still keep in touch. He really plays an important part in their lives by helping them through the journey of higher education.”

It’s that kind of mentoring and genuine concern for a student’s welfare that makes the Community Foundation’s scholarship program what it is—a vital part of our community’s future. 

For more information on Community Foundation of Sarasota County, please visit www.cfsarasota.org or call 941.955.3000.

Ryan G. Van Cleave is the author of 20 books, and he runs the creative writing program at the Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida. Web: ryangvancleave.com