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By Greg Archer | Contributing Columnist
Creating legacies is key for Evelyn E. Perkins Scholarship Foundation. The organization was founded in 2006 by Michelle Heard, Danessa Jackson and Trudi Perkins, the daughters of the late Evelyn E. Perkins, an educator in the region.
Since its inception, the nonprofit group has awarded nearly $50,000 in scholarships to high school students from single-parent homes in several Inland Empire school districts in Riverside, San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties.
“Education has always been at the highest level of concern with my family,” foundation President Michelle Heard said. “I come from a long line of educators. But my mother, specifically, started with the Monrovia (Unified) School District in 1965. They were not even desegregated until 1970. My mother influenced the math lab there. She was listed as one of those influential educators that helped with the Monrovia (Unified) School District. We’re very proud of our legacy.”
There’s mindfulness with how the Perkins foundation is structured. The directors and board members are a diverse mix of businesspeople, active and retired educators, community leaders, a former principal, an attorney, clergy and others who are passionate about education. And, even more so, perhaps, the impact it can have on young people and throughout the community. Preparing students for future leadership also comes into play.
Through events, workshops, scholarships, and other outreach, the organization strives to help those seeking a secondary education. Based in Rancho Cucamonga, the nonprofit assists students who are U.S. citizens in single-parent homes, who have a minimum 3.0 GPA through high school and receive a letter of acceptance from an approved two-year or four-year college.
“We have a lot of like-minded people on our board who understand the value of education, expanding the parameters of your thinking, and being able to convey that to other young people,” Heard said. “Hopefully, these will help to improve not only human relationships but ways to manage all the worldwide challenges we’re all going through.”
Recently, Evelyn E. Perkins Scholarship Foundation received a grant from the Black Equity Fund through Inland Empire Community Foundation. The grant will allow the organization to expand on its various outreach programs.
“Because all of our recipients generally are from single-parent homes, they may have disproportionately not enough funds to either begin a college education,” Heard said. “And even if they have the potential and the grades, college education or college tuition may not be a priority.”
She goes on to point out that the most recent Census Bureau report says in the U.S., more than 25% of households are single-parent households.
“And 80% of them are headed by just single mothers,” she said “With the banning of the Affirmative Action, there’s been a lot of discrepancies on how students are even selected, too. We’re hoping this grant will help us continue to do this work with our workshops, which we’re preparing for spring.”
Typically, those occur in May, when the school year is wrapping up. Heard said the workshops inspire as much as they prepare students for college.
“It allows them to enhance their skills in writing, because essay writing is a very important component of applying for an application for any college,” she said. “We know the importance of being able to express yourself in writing and filling out the application properly because that can be one of the things that disqualifies you from the very beginning.
“Being able to have workshops is another benefit of the grant so we can continue to improve the types of information being shared to attendees.”
Learn more about Evelyn E. Perkins Scholarship Foundation at evelyneperkinsfoundation.org.
Inland Empire Community Foundation works to strengthen Inland Southern California through philanthropy.
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