Texas Exes Awards $2.53 Million to 684 Students at Scholarship Dinners

By Rose Cahalan in Scholarships, Special, TXEX on September 13, 2013 at 11:01 am | No Comments

Scholarships are more often than not a nameless, faceless exchange: a donor writes a check, and eventually a student uses that money to fund an education.

Not so at the Texas Exes, where our scholarship team makes sure that students and donors get the chance to meet and get to know each other—and grow that check into a meaningful relationship.

Case in point: This year’s three annual scholarship dinners, where the Texas Exes awarded a record $2.53 million to 684 students. This year’s awards represent a 33 percent increase over last year. (Get the full scoop on our scholarship program’s record-breaking year in this nifty infographic.)

At the dinners—one each for chapter scholarships, named and dedicated scholarships, and the Forty Acres Scholars Program—scholars, donors, and friends met and mingled, as well as listened to moving speeches by recipients whose lives have been changed.

Forty Acres Scholars Program Director Kristy Kimball says that her team’s strategic scheduling of the dinners paid off. To increase the number of out-of-town guests who would be able to attend, the team scheduled the dinners to coincide with other major draws—including a home football game and the Chapter Leadership Conference.

“We had more donors attend this year than before,” Kimball says. “It was really great to see the students interact with the people who are directly impacting their education.”

Photo by Matt Valentine.

From left: Keimon McDowell, Brittany Blassengill, donor Marilyn White, Andrea Gallardo, and Frank Puente.

Tags: Chapter Scholarships, Forty Acres Scholarships, Naed & Dedicated, scholarship dinners, scholarships