From Duane Gordon

Nearly $1 million will be up for grabs in coming months for area students planning to continue their education as the Middletown Community Foundation kicks off its annual scholarship process.

One of the largest independent scholarship programs in the state of Ohio, the Middletown Community Foundation processes about $900,000 in scholarship aid annually, explained Executive Director T. Duane Gordon.

“For many of these kids, they wouldn’t be able to go to college without our help,” he noted. “As someone who was able to attend college solely because of scholarships and grants myself, this is a part of our work that is very, very close to my heart.”

For students the process begins by visiting the Foundation’s website at www.mcfoundation.org. Students are asked to click on the name of their school to review which scholarships are available to them. More than 100 scholarships are offered annually by the Middletown Community Foundation, some of which have just one winner but some of which have as many as 20 recipients. Applicants are primarily students attending Middletown, Monroe, Madison, Edgewood, Franklin, Bishop Fenwick or Middletown Christian high schools, but a handful of the scholarships also accept applications from students attending schools further away, such as those in Preble or Montgomery counties.

Students are then asked to print out the scholarship application, which is available on the website, and return it to the Foundation no later than 5 p.m. February 28.

“If we get it after that deadline, the student is disqualified,” Gordon said.

Once the application has been received, the student is scheduled for an in-person interview before a panel of three volunteer judges. Over the course of two weeks in March, nearly 60 different volunteers serve on the interview panels.

“The interview can be a bit intimidating for the student,” Gordon admitted, “but it’s a vital part of the process. Talking in person with the applicant often draws out a much better picture of the student’s abilities, character and record than just looking at what’s written down on paper.”

The judges score each student based on academics, school involvement in leadership positions and extra-curricular activities, community involvement, including volunteering and church participation, work experience, challenges or adversities and the student’s determination and ability to succeed. Objective ratings are also given to each student based on financial need, and those combined with the judges’ scores serve as the basis for selecting the scholarship recipients.

Students are notified of the scholarship results usually around the end of April.

Most Middletown Community Foundation scholarships renew annually for a student’s four years in college, Gordon explained, and they range in value from a few hundred dollars to up to $20,000 over a four-year period.

Scholarships are not the only dollars given out by the Community Foundation. Nonprofit organizations are also eligible to apply for grant awards, with the next deadline coming up March 1 for requests in the arts, recreation, community development and festivals. Those applications are also available on the Foundation’s website.