2022 ANNUAL REPORT - MEL DOUGLASS FUND

Scholarships
  • We awarded two $10,000 Mel Douglass Scholarships for the first time.  The winners were Spencer Lehrian, now at Kent State University, and Arielle Sonnenberg, now at Hofstra University.
  • Jack Anderson-Jussen, Duay Augustine, Alex Bilyak, Caroline Caruso, and Brendan Dugita each earned $1,500 honorable mention scholarships. 
  • Over the fund’s 15 year history, your contributions have supported 86 Edgewood students (16 Mel Douglass Scholarship winners plus 70 honorable mention winners) who enrolled in 48 colleges and universities located in 16 states and Washington DC.  Our 86 winners volunteered a combined total of over 38,000 hours of community service before graduating from high school.    
 
Contributions
  • 119 of you donated over $43,000 to the Fund, which established our fifteenth consecutive year of financial success and sustainability.      
  • Over 220 individuals, families, or organizations have contributed to the Fund since our inception in 2008.  We are extremely proud to recognize and celebrate all who have honored Mel with donations.  Our donors from 2018 through 2022 are listed on the back of this page.  All of our donors and scholarship winners since 2008 are displayed on our website (meldouglassfund.org).
  • The Mel Douglass Memorial Golf event on August 13th drew approximately 100 players.  It was a successful fundraiser and a fantastic day of fellowship.  As always, Gregg Bowers and Nick Kefalos deserve thanks for their tremendous leadership of this event.  Thanks again for a sensational day, guys!  Our 2023 golf event will take place on August 12th at Manor Valley Golf Course.  Also, our Board of Directors would like to thank you in person by again hosting a Donor Appreciation Party the night before.  Please save those dates and plan to make it a weekend…more details to follow!
  • As always, 100% of your contributions were directed to current or future scholarships.  All expenses to operate the fund are personally paid by our Board members.  These expenses include our Donor Appreciation Party, tax filings, student and donor communications, website design and maintenance, graphics, printing, and postage.
 
Operations
  • After a two year break caused by COVID, we resumed our Donor Appreciation Party.  The August 12 event at Grand View Golf Club was attended by approximately 45 donors and scholarship recipients.
  • We reaffirmed our strategy to maintain the value of the Mel Douglass Scholarships at 10% of college costs at four year public institutions.  We continued to use cost data published annually by the College Board as our primary source.  A more detailed description of this strategy, including our history of increasing the value of our scholarships over time, is provided on our website.        
  • As always, we aligned all of our activities to build an endowment that is self-sustaining in perpetuity to make sure Mel’s legacy endures and continues to benefit young people in Edgewood.  Once again we balanced short-term and long-term financial objectives:
    • Short-term:  We financially supported all of the scholarships awarded and met all of our other financial, legal, and administrative obligations to operate the fund.
    • Long-term:  We set aside a portion of your contributions to sustain our endowment.  Thanks to you, our endowment remains healthy.