The Berrien County community of Buchanan has seen great times and it has seen tough times. A major announcement in the Redbud City this afternoon clearly makes this one of the decidedly great times in the history of the town, and will be a day long remembered by The Herd. That's the term the city's largest cheerleaders and supporters have dubbed themselves in recent years, and The Herd has had a happy, happy day today.
Community leaders came together today to unveil what Jeff Curry called, "the largest cash donation in the history of Berrien County," which is an endowed scholarship fund called The Buchanan Promise. Curry is a board member of the Michigan Gateway Community Foundation which has established the innovative new education program thanks to the generosity of former Clark Equipment Company CEO Walter Schirmer, Sr and his son Wally, through the Walter E. Schirmer, Jr. Trust.
While the Schirmer estate isn't totally settled yet, Curry says that the cash donation which establishes the new Promise scholarship program clocks in at better than $7-million.
The Buchanan Promise is a place-based scholarship program tied to residency within a defined geographic area. Unlike typical scholarships that include merit-based, need, or achievement criteria for eligibility, the Buchanan Promise has sole eligibility measurement of residence with the Buchanan Community School District.
Scholarship amounts are determined by the length of a student's residency. Beginning with the Class of 2017, every Buchanan High School Graduate who has been enrolled in and resided in the district since kindergarten of 1st grade receives a scholarship of $10,000 spread over four years to assist with tuition and fees at an accredited post-secondary institution. Graduates who have attended a BCS school and lived in the district for four years receive a scholarship equal to 70-percent of the grant, with a sliding scale for those in between.
Scholarships are also awarded on a first dollar basis, meaning that the scholarship amount is granted before a student's other grant aid. Those eligible for additional aid, usually in the form of federal Pell Grants, can use their non-Promise aid to pay for room and board or other college costs. Recipients will have up to six years after high school graduation in which to use their scholarship[ funding, three years for programs whose duration is two years in length. There are almost no strings attached: students must maintain a 2.0 GPA in their college courses and make regular progress toward a degree in order to continue receiving the scholarship.
Perhaps the most extraordinary difference between traditional scholarships and Promise programs is the latter's emphasis on community transformation. The Buchanan Promise will make it possible for a large proportion of the community's youth to obtain new skills and increase the likelihood of job ready, educated workers being attracted to a community.
The multi-million dollar bequest from the Schirmer estate, with the Michigan Gateway Community Foundation as the beneficiary, is modeled after the Kalamazoo Promise. Work to establish the new endowment got underway in earnest about nine months ago and was revealed to the public for the first time this afternoon in ceremonies at the Buchanan Middle School gymnasium.
Wally Schirmer (Jr.) was a 1954 graduate of Buchanan High School and he had established other endowment funds for the community as his father before him, but he approached the community last October as he was fine-tuning his estate plan with the idea of setting up a plan for Buchanan similar to the Promise established in Kalamazoo.
Buchanan had become somewhat of a symbol for industrial decline with the loss of Clark Equipment Company and the Voice of Music Corporation, but fans of the community, inspired by Governor Rick Snyder's call for "relentless positive action" always pushed forward and this becomes a significant boost to the morale and spirit of The Herd.
The beauty of the Buchanan Promise is it comes totally from private support with no government assistance and is totally place-based in nature leveling the playing field for every student in the community.
You can learn more about the endowment by clicking the link below:
