Momentum continues to rise as EC has already raised more than half of its goal of about $1 million for the Osher Scholarship Endowment Program, executive director Katie Gleason said.

The Osher Scholarship Endowment Program is a statewide scholarship program that was established last year in May 2008.

“Mr. Bernard Osher made a $25 million gift to the California community college system, and that was to fund scholarships,” Katie Gleason said.

In addition to the $25 million gift, Osher issued a challenge to the 110 community colleges to raise $50 million. If that was accomplished, he would provide another $25 million for a total of $100 million in scholarship endowment, Gleason said.

“An endowment is permanent, it’s invested, and it’s the earnings from the companies that fund various awards, so it funds what we call in perpetuity, which means forever,” she said.

Gleason also said that each college in the state was given a specific goal based on the amount of students it has and the deadline to meet that goal is in June 2011. EC’s goal is slightly under a million dollars and it includes the Compton campus as well.

“When we raise that money, Mr. Osher will match it with an additional half a million so it becomes a $1.5 million endowment that will fund about $100,000 every year in perpetuity,” she said.

According to the EC newsletter, so far, pledges have come from both individuals and corporations who are more than willing to help students that are in need.

“Because we have until June 2011, many of our pledgers like to make their gift out over a period of time,” Gleason said. “So they’ll pledge and say ‘I want to give $20,000 and I’m going to pay that over the course of two years’.”

Since the program began, Gleason said that it has already received a little over $600,000 in both gifts and pledges.

According to Affinity, which is a California community college magazine for alumni, Southern California Edison (SCE) is one of the corporations that has made a significant contribution to the program.

“Pedro Pizarro, SCE executive vice president of power operations, presented a $200,000 check to El Camino College president Thomas Fallo and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa,” the magazine said.

The contribution would not only help support EC, but it would also go to Compton, Riverside, Mt. San Antonio, Ventura and Fullerton community colleges, Gleason said.

Scholarships from the $25 million that Osher donated were rewarded to 20 students last May, who received $1,000 each. If students are interested in receiving future scholarships, Gleason said then they can apply online through the EC scholarship application.

“Requirements for the Osher scholarships are that the student must have already completed 24 units, they have to be enrolled in a minimum of six units during the applying semester and they must be a board of governor (financial aid) student,” Gleason said.

The application process began the beginning of this month and will continue through Jan. 29.

Although the program continues to gain a lot of momentum, many students still have not heard about it.

“It’s still very new. We’re still in the fundraising process and we’re still trying to get the word out to students,” Gleason said.

She said that in order to inform students about the scholarships, the faculty has created posters to put all over campus and has also made flyers to encourage them to apply online.

“It’s just too important not to participate,” Gleason said.