$50,000 in scholarships awarded to local students

Photograph by Tony Chung, Photographer - Linkedin Media Productions

We started a new tradition last week. Our 1st annual ‘Scholarship Mountain View Awards Dinner’ was at LinkedIn and we’re already planning on making it even bigger and better next year.

The Mountain View Chamber of Commerce Foundation (MVCoCF) provides educational programs for the community. One of those programs is student scholarships. We’ve been offering scholarships since 2009.

Scholarship Mountain View (SMV) started out with 2 scholarships, and last week we were able to help 10 students with some of their college expenses. Each of the 10 scholarship recipients received from $4k-$6k, for a grand total of $50k. Our foundation has collectively raised/given a total of $200k in scholarships to local students. Every single penny donated to SMV goes directly to the students.

This would never be possible without the help of our incredibly generous community. Thank you to our major donors. Our Grant Sponsors are El Camino Hospital, CONCERN EAP, Google, and LinkedIn. Our Presenting Sponsor for the Awards Dinner was Study.com. We have a list of individual sponsors that we want to acknowledge. There were also 290 Chamber members that made voluntary contributions to SMV.

There is still a tremendous financial need in our community and we want to continue our mission. 

Everyday, residents of Mountain View are surrounded by high rise luxury-living, high-end cars, wealth and opportunity. We’re often mentioned in lists of the best places to live, and also the most expensive. Multiple incomes and jobs are needed just to survive.

Over 20% of our local students are in the free-lunch program. One young girl cleans houses of her classmates, along side her mother, in order to help pay the rent. We’ve heard some heartbreaking stories about Mountain View families struggling to stay afloat, but not wanting to leave the area, because they know that this is where the best schools are located.

We are fortunate and grateful to be in a community where multiple organizations work together to support students in need. The $50k that we awarded some students on June 7th is fantastic, but we can do better next year.

There’s another group of students, perhaps even the younger brothers and sisters of this current group, coming along. They’re going to need financial help too. The need won’t stop and our work doesn’t end with this group. Please consider making a generous donation on behalf of your organization.

The contributions that you make towards Scholarship Mountain View go directly to local students. You get to actually meet those students (when you come to our Awards Dinner next year), hear their stories, see the families, hear where they’re going to college and find out what they want to major in.

You get to be part of something bigger. You get to help some Mountain View students find out that they have a whole community supporting them. Thank you.