Scholarships – EASTFORD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

To apply for an Eastford Scholarship, please find the online application at: http://www.cfect.org/Scholarships

More information can be found in these documents:

Community Foundation of Eastern Connecticut Scholarships 2024-2025

To make a donation to the Eastford Scholarship Fund, please visit the Community Foundation site at: www.cfect.org/donate or use this form: Donation Form for Eastford scholarships

Town of Eastford Scholarship Program

In the spring of 2012 the Town of Eastford and the Community Foundation of Eastern Connecticut joined forces to simplify the Town’s scholarship program. For decades, elected officials, staff and volunteers from the Town oversaw the scholarship program’s fund accounting, invested its financial assets, worked with residents to create new scholarship opportunities, processed donations, oversaw the student selection process, and completed a variety of other tasks to sustain and grow the Town’s scholarship funds.

When the Town began looking for alternative resources to support its scholarship program, a committee determined that the Community Foundation of Eastern Connecticut was the right fit. For nearly 30 years the Community Foundation has worked with students, families, donors, high schools, postsecondary education institutions, and civic groups. The Foundation currently manages nearly 100 scholarship funds.

In the coming years the partnership will ease the workload for the Town’s staff and volunteers while keeping the core functions – selecting the award recipients and fundraising activities – in the hands of Eastford residents. Below you will find information about how the responsibilities of the Community Foundation and the Eastford Board of Education will be divided.

The Community Foundation will:

1. Work with Eastford’s Board of Education to provide stewardship for the Town’s scholarships;

2. Support Eastford’s Board of Education as it identifies, focuses and evaluates its scholarship program and optimizes the impact of the scholarship awards;

3. Administer the scholarship application process including marketing available scholarships to schools and students, developing and distributing applications, preparing completed application packets for the Board of Education’s Scholarship Selection Committee, monitoring adherence to selection criteria as established by donors, notifying award recipients, and making payments to institutions of higher education;

4. Serve as a resource to Eastford’s residents in determining the appropriate type of Foundation giving arrangement that will fulfill the donor’s charitable goals;

5. Provide investment management services. Individual funds are pooled together and invested in a well-diversified portfolio, which includes large-, mid, and small-cap US equities, international equities, private real estate, and fixed income security (bonds). The New York City investment firm, Brown Brothers Harriman, manages all funds, which are commingled for investment purposes. Each fund shares proportionately in the investment earnings. Each scholarship fund is maintained as a separate account internally and is reported on an individual basis annually; and

6. Serve as a technical resource and provide support for fundraising efforts

The Town of Eastford’s Board of Education will:

Recommend a Scholarship Selection Committee to review the completed scholarship applications for each scholarship fund and select the award recipients based upon each fund’s criteria (as established by the original donor)
Participate in the establishment of a Fundraising Committee to fund current and/or future scholarships; and
Modify any procedures used to notify students about scholarships available,

At its March 2016 meeting, the Eastford Board of Education appointed the following individuals to a two-year term on the Scholarship Steering Committee: James Barlow, Arthur Brodeur, Lisa DeJesse, Thomas Latham and Stephen Sokoloski.

The Scholarship Steering committee will determine:

What fund-raising will take place for existing and new scholarships;
How descendants of memorial awards should be notified about yearly recipients; and
Whether to modify any procedures used to notify students about the availability and awarding of scholarship funds.