GATES SCHOLARSHIP RECEIVED BY HOLYOKE RESIDENT

For immediate release
August 9, 2000

GATES SCHOLARSHIP RECEIVED BY HOLYOKE RESIDENT
Check Arrives to Single Mother and Mount Holyoke College Student on August 3 from Gates Foundation

SOUTH HADLEY, Massachusetts—Elizabeth Bedoya, a Frances Perkins Scholar at Mount Holyoke College and a resident of Holyoke, MA, has been named a Bill Gates Millennium Scholar. She is part of the program's inaugural class of scholars, which is composed of approximately 4,000 highachieving students from low-income, minority families. Bedoya was selected from a pool of 60,000 nominations.

Supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Gates Millennium Scholarship is administered by the United Negro College Fund, in partnership with the Hispanic Scholarship Fund and the American Indian College Fund. A $1 billion initiative, it is the largest privately funded philanthropic scholarship in history. The goal of the program is to develop future leaders by helping hardworking, minority students achieve their potential.

Bedoya's community leadership and hardwork paved the way for the scholarship. Her essay relays her struggles as a teenage mother and her resolve to better her community. Part of her story is located in Holyoke's Jarvis Heights Apartments, where she lives and started working as a receptionist 10 years ago. She rose from rental agent to assistant manager to property manager at the building, which is located on Gerard Way in Holyoke. Bedoya's "mission," as she puts it, was to clean out the drugs, gangs, and violence that plagued Jarvis Heights, and she was instrumental in 1995 in obtaining a drug elimination grant.

Receiving her award on August 3, Bedoya says that she is proud to represent her community. Bedoya is studying political science at Mount Holyoke College and plans to attend law school so that she may pursue a career as an immigration lawyer. Last year, the busy Mount Holyoke student and mother of two served on the board of Holyoke's Neighborhood Network Center and was a member of the nominating committee for the Western Massachusetts Girl Scouts. At Jarvis Heights, she is also chair of the building's Boy Scouts troop.

To be eligible for nomination, students must have a GPA of 3.3 or higher, show financial need and demonstrate leadership skills and community involvement. According to the Gates program, the typical scholar candidate was between 18 to 29 years old with an average GPA for continuing undergraduates students, like Bedoya, of more than 3.7.

The Frances Perkins Program at Mount Holyoke College is a specially designed program for women of non-traditional age who wish to complete the requirements for a Bachelor of Arts degree. The Frances Perkins Program enables a woman who is over the age of 24 to earn a first-rate degree that meets all the requirements of the undergraduate program and at the same time offers the option of electing either a full or part-time (two courses) schedule.