Last week, my travels took me to SouthCoast Marketplace in Fall River, and as I drove down William S. Canning Boulevard, I spotted a tiny sign that read, “Fall River, The Scholarship City Welcomes You.”
The Scholarship City? I thought Fall River was the “We’ll Try” city.
It turns out, before the latter was implemented, the former originated in 1958 thanks to a local optometrist with an inspiring dream.
In 1958, an optometrist named Dr. Irvin Fradkin founded a program called Dollars for Scholars in the City of Fall River.
It was a community effort to provide scholarships for students to continue their education beyond high school.
“The original idea is that if everyone in the community gave just a dollar to an educational fund, it would be enough to help nearly every student in the community who wanted to continue education after high school,” said the program’s official website.
Today, CSF of Fall River Dollars for Scholars is an all-volunteer organization in Fall River that provides grants and scholarships to advance post-secondary educational opportunities for students. The program is completely funded through gifts received by the program.
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Scholarship America is the nation’s largest nonprofit scholarship and education support organization and it directly grew from the vision of Fradkin.
“Today, Scholarship America’s Dollars for Scholars is the nation’s most extensive grassroots scholarship program with chapters in 475 local communities, operated by 12,500 volunteers,” said The Herald News.
The program’s first chapter is still hard at work in Fall River, lovingly called “Scholarship City” because of its role in America’s scholarship history.
If you ask me, "Scholarship City" has a much better ring to it than "We'll Try."
Gallery Credit: Maddie Levine
Gallery Credit: Michael Rock
