Meadville Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship Fund
For the Meadville Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Scholarship Fund, Inc., founded in 1968, it matters to us that we meet various needs of our children and youth like the vision of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in “I Have a Dream.”
The fund has grown from its early beginning of door-to-door canvassing to an endowment of over $325,000 dollars. The Board holds an annual reception where scholarships are awarded to bright and talented students who graduate from the Meadville Area Senior High School. We take pride in knowing that many of the recipients now live and work in Meadville and Crawford County.
In 2010, the Board formed a partnership with Allegheny College and the Crawford Central School District to design and implement Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Mentoring Program at the Meadville Area Middle School; this program became a PA 21st Century Community Learning Center in 2019. The program was monitored in 2021 and identified as an outstanding center due to involvement of students and parents in the enrichment activities complemented by the extraordinary staff from the community and state that included Acutec, K-12 Education Alliance, Watershed STEM, Women’s Services, NWPA, MARC, and PHEAA.
In 2019, we held the inaugural of Meadville, the Beloved Community Fair, an event now in its fifth year. The Fair is a passport event where students, parents and the community attend to meet, greet and learn about the many agencies, government, non-profits, businesses, industries, churches, school district and media that impact our daily lives. It is an event where we learn more and more to greatly appreciate our community.
In 2021, we saw the need to organize a sustainability ad hoc committee with the mission to come up with ways to communicate to the community the urgency of providing support for our qualifying students to gain a post-secondary education. In 2022, the committee rolled out Savor for Scholars, a Meadville Heritage Celebration, which premiered April 23 at the Italian Civic Club.
As always, our vision is that we keep that collaborative spirit alive.
