Scholarship … Spring 2018

Although, I may now “officially” be the chair of the scholarship committee, the scholarship has always been close to my heart.

When I first came on the board, my first appointment was the scholarship committee, and then I have served as the financial consultant to the scholarship committee for the past 10 years. Also, for the last year, Jackie and I have been co-chairs. Here is an overview of what we have done since the last issue.

Early January

Early in January Jackie mailed 22 letters to Associations and 1 letter to the Chairwoman for AB Girls, asking them to start putting out the word that the ABWM/NYS Scholarship forms were available for the 2017- 2018 year. She also requested they forward the letter to all their local Baptist church liaisons.

If for whatever reason, the information is not always forwarded to you, please feel free to contact me, and I will gladly send you anything you need.

Please verify, if you have any scholarship applications, that they have the Deadline Date of June 1st and discard any old applications. The latest application is also available on the ABWM-NYS website. If you have any difficulty finding it or printing it, please contact me.

Also, if you provide an application to any potential applicant, please ensure that you also provide the Instructions and Checklist. These pages include very important and helpful information for the applicant, such as an itemized list of exactly what must be included with each application.

In January, all of the existing scholarship recipients, were contacted and encouraged to reapply.

They were reminded that all pertinent documents must be postmarked by June 1st in order for the applicant to be considered for a scholarship.

Keep in Contact

I encourage everyone to try and send your scholarship girl, a care package or card of encouragement as they prepare for finals.

If you have a graduating senior, I’m sure they would appreciate a card of congratulations (even if you send it to their home address).

Please do not be discouraged if you don’t hear back from them. We continually remind and encourage them to send Thank you notes, but as we
all know “life gets in the way” and our own best intentions often don’t make it to reality.

What is Coming

The scholarship committee will be meeting sometime in late June or early July. I will get the reward letters to the recipients and Association assignments out in July or August. As soon as I receive the pen sketch with the girl’s college address, I will forward it to the appropriate Association.

Because many girls do not get their college address until they are on campus, I may not be able to mail these until early September.

That is why Jackie made a suggestion at the Fall Board meeting that, if you are able, leave spaces in the booklets where addresses can be added after they are received or when you plan your 2018 fall meetings that you make them for the last two weeks in September and maybe as late as October.

Also, remember that not all Associations will get the pen sketches at the same time, I will forward them as soon as I receive them.

Give Generously

I would also like to remind everyone to please give generously to the NYS Scholarship Fund.

The size of the scholarships are directly dependent on your contributions. For example, if we collect $3,000 in 2017-2018, then for 2018-2019, the scholarship committee can only reward $3,000 in scholarships.

Please remember the fiscal year runs April 1st to March 31st. So any funds for us to use have to received by the state treasurer by March 31st of the year for those funds to be available for scholarship that year.

We already know, that we will be able to award $900 less this year than last year. (Each applicant will still receive a scholarship, it will just be a smaller dollar amount).

Please use the Scholarship Calendar to promote the Scholarship fund locally and to your associations. (It is also available to be downloaded on the website.)

In closing I would like to thank Jackie Lottermoser for her many years of dedicated service to promote the Scholarship committee and recipients.

Scholarship Chairwoman, Colleen