Bay Area Community Foundation Hosts Bay Commitment Scholarship Award Ceremony May 17, 2011

Bay City, MI – The Bay Area Community Foundation will hold the fourth annual Bay Commitment Scholarship Award Ceremony at the Scottish Rite Cathedral at 7 p.m. on May 17, 2011.  One Hundred graduating seniors from Bay County public high schools will each receive a $2,000 scholarship to attend Delta College or Saginaw Valley State University.  The program will feature presentations by a student currently attending SVSU who received a 2008 Bay Commitment Scholarship; Jason Clements.

The Bay Commitment College Access Network is to provide scholarship funds to students who are the first generation in his or her family to attend college working toward a bachelor’s degree.  In the fall of 2009, Bay Commitment was expanded to include all public high schools in Bay County.  The students must have attended Bay County public schools for six years and plan to attend either Delta College or Saginaw Valley State University.  Next year the Bay Area Community Foundation and the Bay Commitment Steering Committee will be expanding the college access network to all Bay County schools, including parochial schools, based on available funding.

“We are pleased to be a founding partner of Bay Commitment”, stated Eileen A. Curtis, Bay Area Community Foundation President & CEO.  “Bay Commitment and all of the Donor Sponsored Scholarships represent over $400,000 in scholarships this year for local students attending local schools.  It is a long ways from the one $300 scholarship available in 1985.  Additionally, since the Foundation began operations in 1982, we have been able to invest over $16 million through grantmaking to local nonprofit organizations.”