“Many of us spent late May and June, 2020 watching as this country grappled with police violence and continuing racism. Wondering how we can help change things for the better. Maybe we joined in demonstrations, educated ourselves on black history and racism or supported the efforts of anti-racism groups. Maybe we persevered with the work we were already doing with more urgency than before. Maybe we constructively talked about race with friends and coworkers for the first time, ever.” Meg and Tyler wanted to make a lasting change to move towards equality and representation in the community. In that spirit, we have established the Pay it FRWRD Scholarship Fund to help finance a person of color to attend the criminal justice program at Madison College. This scholarship has been established to help remove barriers on a young person of color’s path to be represented and to increase diversity in the criminal justice field to bring more empathy and understanding to persons of color.

As the COVID-19 crisis continued to unfold, it became clear that students had delayed decisions for the future, including whether to enroll in classes. At the same time, we saw the needs of our student body continuing to grow. In response, the Madison College Foundation reopened and extended the fall 2020 scholarship application until mid-June to ensure students had more time to apply for help as they navigate the realities of this pandemic.

Over 250 new applications came in during this extension. This brings the total number of applications to 760 for the fall 2020 semester, nearly double the number of applications normally seen for the fall semester application.

If you would like to help meet these needs, please consider a contribution to our Smart Future Scholarship fund today.