2016 Summary - Mel douglass fund

Scholarships
  • Sam Cahill won the $6,000 Mel Douglass Scholarship for his community service, which included serving as a Youth Ambassador to Bolivia and Peru.  He also designed and built free book kiosks for the Homewood Community Empowerment Association and volunteered as an after school tutor and swimming instructor in Braddock.  Sam is now a freshman at Oberlin College.
  • Jolene Augustine, Maria Belechak, Matt Bilyak, and Eric Pomper earned $500 honorable mention scholarships.  
  • The Belechaks joined the Bushes as the only families to earn four scholarships.  Maria’s siblings Peter (2013) and Olivia (2014) won the Mel Douglass Scholarship and Lucas (2010) earned an honorable mention scholarship.  
  • After nine years, your contributions have supported 46 Edgewood students (nine Mel Douglass Scholarship winners plus 37 honorable mention winners) who enrolled in 30 colleges and universities located in 13 states and Washington DC.  


Contributions
  • 2016 contributions to the fund ranged up to $6,500.  12% of the 90 contributors were new to the fund in 2016.  Welcome!  
  • Our donor base continues to be a healthy blend of long time and newer contributors.  Since 2008, over 160 individuals, families, or organizations have contributed.  We are proud to celebrate all who have honored Mel over the years and we are proud to recognize you on the back of this page.
  • The annual Mel Douglass Memorial Golf event on August 13 was another rousing success and a memorable day of fellowship.  Gregg Bowers and Nick Kefalos once again deserve recognition and tremendous thanks for their leadership of this event.  Thanks as always for a terrific day, guys!  Our 2017 golf event will take place on August 5.  Please save the date…more information to follow.
  • Consistent with previous practice, 100% of your contributions were directed to current or future scholarships.  All administrative expenses (tax filings, web design and maintenance, graphics, postage, etc.) are personally paid by our Board of Directors.


Operations
  • The board approved increases in the scholarship values for 2017.  We increased the value of the Mel Douglass Scholarship from $6,000 to $8,000 and we increased the honorable mention scholarship from $500 to $1,000.  This is the second time in our nine years that we increased the Mel Douglass Scholarship and the first time we increased the honorable mention scholarship.     
  • We continued to align all of our activities to build a fund that is self-sustaining in perpetuity to make sure Mel’s tremendous legacy endures and benefits young people in Edgewood.  We balanced short-term and long-term objectives again in 2016:
    • Short-term:  We financially supported all of the scholarships awarded and met all of our other obligations to operate the fund.
    • Long-term:  We set aside a portion of your contributions to continue building a sustaining fund.  For the ninth straight year, we increased the December 31 balance in the fund.