Students at Title I Schools Across SC to Receive YMCA Scholarships
The SC Bar Foundation presents a check to YMCA YIG Executive Director Mary Capers Bledsoe and YMCA Development Specialist Tiffany Massey
Through a “fund-and-friend-raising” event sponsored by Certus Bank, Collins and Lacy, The Palmetto Bank, and TD Bank, the South Carolina YMCA Youth in Government program has received a $5,000 grant from the SC Bar Foundation.
Approximately 100 people from the Upstate legal community were present and made gifts to the Bar Foundation which, in turn, donated the proceeds to three grantees – including SC YMCA Youth in Government.
The $5,000 gift awarded to the Y provides students attending Title I schools, who otherwise could not afford to participate, with access to life-enriching Y programs that cultivate the values, relationships and skills kids need to thrive.
SC Bar Foundation funding supports scholarships for fifteen students to participate in Model Legislature and Court Conference for high school students.
More than 1,200 students from 45 schools participate in November at this three-day conference at the Statehouse in Columbia.
Student legislators write and debate bills, student attorneys try and appeal cases, and student reporters publish a newspaper and create a nightly newscast for an experience that provides an intensive, hands-on learning project into the mechanisms and subtleties of the state government process.
SC Bar Foundation Executive Director Shannon Scruggs remarked, “The Bar Foundation has been a long time funder of SC Youth in Government. We are particularly pleased that our dollars go to support students in Title I schools who otherwise would not have the chance to participate in this life-changing law-related education opportunity.”
Youth in Government officials said the program uses a “service-learning model” in the belief that “leadership is developed by doing.” High school students help provide leadership for middle school programs, while college students, who are alumni of the Youth in Government program, provide leadership for high school programming. All programs are guided and directed by committed adult volunteers and YMCA professional staff.
This is the second year that the SC Bar Foundation’s “Greenville Gathering” has supported the Y, but the Foundation has awarded grants to YIG for several years. The most recent grant awarded to Youth in Government funded scholarships for middle and high school students attending Title One Schools throughout the state, specifically in the state’s I-95 area. The grant also benefits youth and community organizations in low income neighborhoods that typically do not have access or resources for youth to participate in a high-quality, educational extra-curricular activity.
FORMAL DISCLOSURE: CRESCENT’s publisher Taft Matney sits on the board of YMCA Youth in Government and is its 2013 chair.
