Donation will fund four scholarships for Clark County students.
A $957,000 gift to the Springfield Foundation will provide four new scholarships to area students, including tuition to Catholic Central.
The gift was left as part of a trust from a Springfield resident last week, Executive Director Ted Vander Roest said. The foundation wasn’t permitted to release the name of the donor, he said, whom he had never met.
The money will be used to create four scholarship funds worth about $12,500 annually, Vander Roest said, including two scholarships for tuition at Catholic Central Elementary School and Catholic Central High School.
The two other scholarships will be for Clark County graduates entering the fields of education and veterinary sciences, he said.
The Springfield Foundation has donated more than 3,100 scholarships worth $4.6 million since its first scholarship fund was created in 1964.
Partial scholarships may be available for the next school year, Vander Roest said. The full scholarships will likely be available for the 2018-19 school year, he said.
The gift will allow for about $50,000 in scholarships annually, he said.
“That’s forever,” Vander Roest said. “It should grow over time.”
The foundation receives similar gifts each year, Vander Roest said, but this is one of the larger donations it has ever received where it didn’t have a relationship with that person.
“When someone leaves you something like that and you’ve never met them, it’s nice to know they trust us that much,” he said.
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