A group of nine students at Foundation Collegiate Academy recently learned that Give Something Back Foundation will pay for their college education.
Who could have imagined that the effects of one $250 scholarship given to a young boy in Illinois in 1963 would ripple through the decades, eventually setting nine youngsters from Trenton on a path to college?
Those nine, freshmen at the city's Foundation Collegiate Academy, recently heard the amazing news that the Give Something Back Foundation will pay the full freight for their four-year college experience, assuming they stay the course.
That means maintaining a B-average while they are in high school, participating in a mentoring program and making sure they attend workshops designed to sharpen their learning skills.
The Give Something Back Foundation began in 2003, launched by Robert Carr, a businessman who never forgot the helping hand he received from the Lockport (Ill.) Women's Club when he was about to begin his studies at the University of Illinois.
The scholarship program started modestly, with five students who each received $5,000 a year for five years.
$1M TCNJ gift puts students through college
Today, the nonprofit has expanded to New Jersey and Delaware, in addition to Illinois, and works hand-in-hand with administrators and teachers to identify ninth grade students who show academic promise and who come from families for which a four-year college degree is out of reach.
Close to 500 students have come through the program. GSBF officials say 95 percent of the recipients complete their studies in four years, as compared with a national average of less than 50 percent.
The GSBF program wisely recognizes that the best learning goes beyond the walls of the school. The application process not only involves a family information meeting, but also requires that the students obtain both school and community recommendations.
Carr, who founded Heartland Payment Systems in Princeton, told an interviewer that for the first six or seven years of the program, it targeted high school seniors.
He eventually decided it would be better to concentrate on a younger population, providing them early on with the tools to become tomorrow's scholars.
"My mom went to a two-year business school ... but in my household I'm the first one going to college for four years," said Audrey Vargas, who survived the rigorous application process and the ensuing nerve-wracking wait.
Vargas and eight other classmates at the charter school are among New Jersey's inaugural class for the scholarship-granting foundation. The others are Jennifer Araya, Alecia Cason, Destiny Colon, Kristofer Guadron, Nyi-shera Hairston, Justin Polanco, Donovan Smith and Elmer Sobalbarro.
The future is looking bright for these future leaders, thanks to their own initiative and to the vision of a tycoon who realizes the importance of repaying a kindness, and then some.