Contact Rosemarie Brown Chamber of Commerce Southwestern Madison County office cell

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1 Media Release February 10, 2014 Contact Rosemarie Brown Chamber of Commerce Southwestern Madison County office cell Granite City Foundations Award $40,000 in Scholarships 3600 Nameoki Rd, Suite 101 P. O. Box 370, Granite City, IL Phone: Fax:

2 Granite City Foundations Awards $ 40,000 in Scholarships How many times have you heard, The future is in the hands of our young people, then isn t it up to us to give those young people a helping hand? Well there are two local foundations that are doing just that, St. Elizabeth Healthcare Foundation (SEHF) and the Chamber of Commerce of Southwestern Madison County s It Starts Here Foundation (ISH) have join forces with a mission statement that reads they will be: providing a resource for the people, businesses and the communities of Southwestern Madison County, to foster the growth of a sustainable economy that will strengthen the community and to identify and address the unmet health care needs of the people in Granite City, Madison, Venice, Pontoon Beach and Mitchell, Illinois by, among other things, sponsoring medical science scholarships, educating the populations through programs and activities, all in order to (1) promote pride in the SW Madison County Area, the health and welfare of its residents, and the restoration of its private and public facilities and (2) to improve the quality of life and unlock the potential of the people of Southwestern Madison County to build and sustain healthy communities. SEHF, a 501 (3) organization, has elected to become a supporting organization to ISHF in order to specifically address, sponsoring medical science scholarships, educating the populations through programs and activities, all in order to (1) promote pride in the SW Madison County Area, the health and welfare of its residents by offering medical scholarships to people in the Madison County. The scholarship applications go through an impartial third party management service which is a division of Scholarship America. This program uses standard Scholarship America recipient selection procedures including the consideration of academic performance, demonstrated leadership and participation in school and community activities, work experience, a statement of career and educational goals and objectives, unusual personal or family circumstances and an outside appraisal. The statement of their goals includes a question asking how the student plans to give back to the community following completion of his/her degree. The board awarded four scholarships in 2013 to recipients all of whom are from Madison County. Katrina Cordova will graduate in 2014 with a Nursing degree from SWIC. Samuel Richey is a Medical Student at Saint Louis University.

3 Stephanie Swanson will graduate 2015 with a degree in Healthcare Administration from SIUE. Amanda Wineburner will graduate 2015 as a Family Nurse Practitioner from SIUE. However, the two foundations have also established The Congressman Jerry Costello Scholarship which includes Madison County but also reaches into the St. Clair County area for recipients. This scholarship was made possible through the funds raised at the 2012 event An Evening with Congressman Jerry Costello presented by the Chamber of Commerce of Southwestern Madison County. The 2013 recipient of The Jerry Costello Scholarship is Molly Etling, a young lady from Freeburg in St. Clair County. Molly graduates in 2014 from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign she will be practicing medicine in Southern Illinois. Molly received $16, The total funds awarded in 2013 the five student was $ 40,000. The SEHF adopted the recommendation, of the Scholarship review committee that all scholarships will be open to residents of both Madison and St. Clair Counties starting in There will be just one call for applications, including the Jerry Costello award. The ISH Foundation also put into action a program that drastically changed the appearance of Route #3. This route was chosen not only for the high traffic count but also because it serves as an entrance to three of our cities, as well as two entryways into our State of Illinois. One of which now has a park, with a welcoming sculpture our Salute to Steel in place of mounds of debris and an area that was used as a dump at the McKinley Bridge entrance into Illinois. This transformation cost in access of one half million dollars. However, this was more than a beautification program it was a transformation of a very highly traveled industrial transportation route, running the full seven and a half miles, from Chain of Rocks Road at Interstate 270 to the McKinley Bridge entrance. In that designated area there are eleven intersections, each of the four corner have a beautiful 30 x 10 raised flower bed containing 300 to 500 bulbs, grasses, evergreens and annuals, plus the planting of 750 trees along the route by IDOT. This was all done at a cost of about $60,000 of private money. The ISHF is preparing to roll out their third Leadership Program that will focus on 30 young people who are hourly employees that have the potential of becoming leaders within their organizations. The goal of this program is to help develop basic soft, technical, and business related competencies necessary to help these people to succeed.

4 In this ever changing, competitive business environment, the goal of this program is to grow our future leaders by developing those that have the capacity, the drive and the desire to accomplish and contribute more. The community is welcome to join us in our endeavors; we accept a variety of Gifts in Honor of recognizing a friend s birthday, memorials to a loved one, a celebration or a special occasion with a gift to the Foundations. The honored individual will receive a personal note acknowledging the gift. You can direct your support to a specific area, such as health field scholarships, the community beautification programs or the leadership Programs. The foundations are a taxexempt organization under Section of the Internal Revenue Code this makes your gifts tax deductible to the full extent of the law. NR Scholarships11-13

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