The Georgetown Promise Scholarship
Since retiring from active church ministry, I have devoted much of my time and energy to addressing racial justice and equity issues here in the community where we moved in 2012. This work has taken a number of forms- participating in the development of a local interfaith and interracial racial justice and equity initiative called Courageous Conversations Georgetown, organizing a local racial awareness experience we called Riding the Freedom Trail, attending a variety of racial education programs, establishing an educational scholarship for students of color in our community, and writing a book on why I believe white people must accept the responsibility for dismantling the legacy of racism in America. In this work, the one ongoing personal initiative my wife and I have taken on is the creation and support of the educational scholarship fund called the Georgetown Promise Scholarship.
The murders of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and George Floyd prompted my wife and I to make a personal commitment to racial equity and justice in our community by acknowledging our complicity in allowing people of color in this country to continue to be victims of white racism. To that end, we developed an Open Letter of Apology to People of Color in our Community that we invited 75 of our white friends to sign on to and we had published in our local newspaper. From the feedback we received from our friends of color to this letter of apology, we were asked to consider some concrete actions we could take to demonstrate our commitment to racial justice rather than just relying on words of apology. One of the suggestions was the idea of creating an educational scholarship for local students of color that would help high school graduates continue their education without financial restraints. We took this suggestion to heart and developed with the help of our white friends who were interested in this effort the Georgetown Promise Scholarship. We asked a long-standing African American organization in our community and another that works primarily with the Latino community- to provide representatives to serve on a Guidance Committee for the proposed scholarship fund aimed at benefiting students of color in Georgetown. We set a goal of raising $25,000 to start this scholarship fund for students of color in our community to further their education, whether in a vocational school, a community college, or a college or university of their choosing so they could navigate to a brighter, inclusive and diverse futures. While we have served as the fund-raisers for this scholarship fund, the Guidance Committee choose the name for this scholarship fund, developed the criteria for scholarship awards and amounts of scholarships that are awarded each year, and the selection of the local students who receive these scholarships. Our local Chisholm Trail Communities Foundation (CTCF) provides administrative support for this scholarship fund and manages all the accounting involved in granting scholarships as directed by the Guidance Committee. After the first scholarships were awarded. we announced to the large Georgetown community that we had established this scholarship and invited others to consider supporting this scholarship as a local reparations effort. All contributions to this Georgetown Promise Scholarship can be made payable to the Chisholm Trail Communities Foundation, with a notation that the contribution is for this “Georgetown Promise Scholarship” and mailed to 116 West 8th Street, Georgetown, TX 78626. Contributions are tax-deductible and an acknowledgment receipt will be sent to the donors by CTCF.
Online contributions to the Georgetown Promise Scholarship can also be made at https://chisholm-trail.org/donate/
Select GPS from the list of “Designated Funds” selection on the donation page.