Small Town News

New scholarship fund created

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Kaskaskia College is pleased to announce the newly created Gene and Bonnie Huels Scholarship fund. This scholarship is established with a $5,000 gift to be matched dollar for dollar from the Title III, Strengthening Institutions grant from the United State Department of Education.

Gene and Bonnie are committed to helping students who might not qualify for traditional forms of financial assistance yet still need help with the costs of tuition and books. In making the gift Bonnie said, "Education is so important and there are too many students out there in the middle, who don't qualify for any assistance but a loan. We want to provide some help so these students can keep their loans low and stay in school. We have thought about this for a long time and considered setting up a scholarship later in life, but the Title III program convinced us that now was the time because our gift would be doubled."

Gene Huels is a Financial Advisor with Country Companies in Carlyle, and Bonnie is the Assistant Professor of Sociology at Kaskaskia College.

In recent months Kaskaskia College has received a Title III federal grant that will impact the college in significant ways over the next five years. One component of that grant allows KC to match dollar for dollar funds that we raise for an endowed scholarship fund. This scholarship gift will now be $10,000 in funding that will be available for area students.

Director of the Title III Program, Rob Blinn says, "Title III is a Strengthening Institutions grant from the United States Department of Education, where we are working toward building stronger educational programs. The grant's primary focus is geared toward helping our students become more prepared for continued education. As a-part of this grant we have been blessed with the opportunity to raise $225,500 with federal matching funds for a total of $451,000 all designated for endowed scholarship funds. With today's increased number of scholarship applications, this is a great way to provide more scholarship opportunities for students in our area who need assistance in order to continue a post secondary education well into the future."



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© 2011 The Trenton Sun Trenton, Illinois. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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