Supporting Future Generations

By Donna Bumgarner, CPA

One of the nonprofit organizations I show up for is the American Cancer Society. For the past several years, I have been a member of the selection committee of the California Division’s Young Cancer Survivor Scholarship program. This group awards stipends of up to $7,500 for educational expenses to college-bound pediatric cancer survivors who need financial aid.

Applicants must be college-bound or college-enrolled students who are cancer survivors diagnosed at 18 years of age or younger (age 25 or younger at the time of application); demonstrate financial need; and be California residents who plan to attend a two or four-year accredited undergraduate institution in California. This year, each selection committee member reviewed approximately 10 applications from the 75 received. In addition to assessing financial need and basic academic requirements, the committee reviews each applicant’s educational and career plans, life philosophy, motivation and determination by evaluating three short essays.

Once students are accepted into the program, they are required to serve a minimum of 25 volunteer hours with the American Cancer Society and maintain a minimum 2.5 GPA. Applicants are eligible to receive up to four years of scholarships. The committee was able to approve renewal applications for 24 returning students and award new scholarships to another 26 students.

I welcome participating in this activity every year, and I continue to show up because I care about the cause. By awarding scholarships to deserving young students, I feel we are helping future generations.

So how can we all help future generations? One easy way is to financially support accounting students by attending our chapter’s Annual Golf Tournament. This event is just around the corner and raises money for our chapter’s scholarship fund. The Golf Committee (co-chaired by Perry Forschino and Andrew Bader) is working hard to bring us another quality tournament.

This particular event is a great opportunity for CPAs to network with each other, as well as with attorneys, bankers and various other business owners. The tournament will be held at Coyote Creek Valley Friday, Sept. 18. I encourage you to consider being a tournament sponsor or playing in the tournament. Invite your colleagues, clients or business associates to join you at this quality event. Find additional information and the registration form online. Hope to see you there!

This entry was posted on Friday, September 11th, 2009 at 10:28 am and is filed under President's Message. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.