To further its reach in the Northwest Indiana community and provide accessible funding for students looking for quality, private education, Big Shoulders Fund has launched the Northwest Indiana White Family Scholarship. With multiple distinct areas in the scholarship funds, the initiative extends Big Shoulders Fund’s mission to help each student reach their potential.
The scholarship program has two distinct areas of focus: emergency funding and emerging leaders scholarships. The emergency funding side of the program is specifically for families struggling through an unfortunate event or tragedy, like the loss of a job or loved one, and are unable to pay the expenses associated with private education.
“We want to be able to help those families stay in Catholic education and help with tuition,” Dan Kozlowski, the Executive Director of the Big Shoulders Fund Northwest Indiana Initiative said. “This has been put in place if and when those situations arise.”
On the other side of Big Shoulders Fund’s scholarship program is their Leaders Scholarship, which Kozlowski describes as a merit-based scholarship for both elementary and high school students
“We have one scholarship for elementary school kids starting in fifth grade, while the other is for high school students starting their freshman year,” he explained. “These are scholarships where we ask the principals to think of students who are emerging leaders. We specifically look for students who have leadership potential and we can encourage and help grow in their future.”
Students are nominated by the school principal and after submitting an application, Big Shoulders Fund reviews the application and awards the scholarships based on the principal’s recommendation.
“The student will have access to a financial award, but they will also have access to monthly programming that we are currently developing,” Kozlowski said. “Each month, elementary and high school students will go through programming focused on STEM projects and sustainable living. They will be meant to enrich the students and encourage their emergence as leaders of their class.”
Big Shoulders Fund is working to increase enrollment and access to private education in areas that have been historically underserved. These areas include cities like Gary, Hammond, East Chicago, and Merrillville where families may not be able to afford Catholic education on their own.
“We want our schools to be reaching out to these communities and open themselves up to families and students there,” Kozlowski said. “To do that, we have an enrollment incentives program as part of our overall scholarship model.”
The enrollment incentive aspect of the scholarship program encourages schools to help families make the move to private education, providing the funding needed to make that transition happen. The incentive program connects the organization to Catholic school principals in order to grow their schools with students from communities with need.
Almost two years after the initial expansion into Northwest Indiana, thanks to a generous donation from the Bruce and Beth White Foundation, Big Shoulders Fund is further expanding its initiative—and mission—with the scholarship program.
Bruce and Beth White are passionate about education, especially active and engaged learning,” Kozlowski said. “They want children to have access to enriching activities outside of the school day to make sure these concepts students are learning in school are really put into action outside of the school building. Any time we have the opportunity to have extended-day programming for students, we’re really using that time to enrich what they’re already learning and showing them how it all applies in the real-world setting.”
“With these scholarships, we’re able to do exactly that and provide students from underfunded communities the opportunity to have access to those experiences and that kind of learning.
For more information about Big Shoulders Fund, visit their website at https://bigshouldersfund.org/our-programs/northwest-indiana-initiative/
