Today, it’s our pleasure to feature A Better Tomorrow Education Fund.
Nicole Berg, one of the founders, is a law student at the University of
Illinois College of Law. The idea for the Fund came one Christmas morning
when Dennis Kass and Nicole decided that they wanted to create an alternative to Christmas gift giving. Instead of exchanging
Christmas gifts, they wanted to help Chicago kids trying to get a college
education. They created the Fund to do this. In the words of Nicole
and Dennis:
Our organization started as a group of Chicago residents who wanted to help students with higher education costs. With 85% of Chicago public school students living in poverty, most are left struggling to pay for the education they need to escape neighborhoods plagued by drugs, gangs, violence, and poverty. Related to this, an alarmingly low number of students get through college and graduate. "Balancing work, college, and extracurriculars has been difficult but I have gotten better at it with time," said Marisol, who received a scholarship from the Fund last fall. The scholarship definitely helps: "This scholarship will help me tremendously. Thank you so much for granting an extra step to achieving my dreams." A graduate of the Chicago Public Schools and a student at Dominican University, Marisol hopes to practice medicine in her Chicago neighborhood. Students like Marisol receive not only monetary scholarships, but they also participate in a mentoring program, an aspect of the program that is crucial to students who may not have college-experienced parents or family members. Although many of the city's top high school students receive substantial scholarships, there are many more students who might not have perfect grades, but have overcome significant barriers and are deserving of the opportunities that come with higher education. A Better Tomorrow Education Fund strives to help fill that gap.
With no overhead or administrative costs, this is a particularly great organization to which to contribute. We are thrilled to be making our first contribution to this organization this week.
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