By Austen Erblat, South Florida Sun Sentinel
November 1, 2019
After a goal-shattering year, one of the largest foundations to offer scholarships to students in South Florida has opened up its application process.
The George Snow Scholarship Fund raised $1.44 million for 150 scholarship winners from Palm Beach and northern Broward County last year. The scholarship is available to high school seniors in Palm Beach County as well as Blanche Ely, Pompano Beach and Marjory Stoneman Douglas high schools in Broward County and a small number of graduate students with financial need.
With the application process opening up again, Tim Snow, president of the foundation and son of its namesake, spoke about how they were able to raise so much money and what they’re looking for in upcoming applications.
“In terms of setting our goals, we’re always trying to do better than we did the year before,” he said.
“We’ve had good success doing that for some time now. Our organization is a community of people that share the belief that education is the key to a better life and there’s a lot of deserving young people out there that just need a bit of a hand up, so we raise our money in a variety of ways — through special events, direct contributions from local individuals, organizations, companies — and we’ve had great success expanding that community year after year.”
Last year’s goal was $1 million, but Snow’s organization was able to raise even more through donations from people and organizations like Suzy Geller, a former school teacher who volunteers with Boca Helping Hands, Sandoway House and Family Promise and Philip Studer, a commercial banker for SunTrust Bank and volunteer interviewer at the George Snow Foundation.
Snow also said the Quantum Foundation and the Palm Health Care Foundation are among the foundation’s larger donors, as well as individual contributions from people like Dan and Shoshana Davidowitz as well as Mitch and Debbi Fogel.
“We’re looking for young people who are looking to help themselves and others,” Snow said. “Folks who have financial need but are active in their school and community and have good work ethic.
Snow said they are hoping to raise even more money and award scholarships to more students than last year. Their staff is going out to high schools in Palm Beach County and students, staff and parents can view a schedule of high school visits at Scholarship.org.