Stories
Stories
Cultivating Can-Do Attitudes
Photo by Chris Cone
Two days before Thanksgiving 2002, the 4th graders of Irving Primary in Peoria, Illinois, gathered in the school’s gym for an assembly. The students were restless, Jen Wilfong (GMP 3, 2007) recalls. They were chatting and jostling one another and had little interest in what she had to say. “Except when I said, ‘I’m going to give you all thousand-dollar scholarships,’” she says. “Their heads snapped up.”
Wilfong was there to launch the Can Do 4:13 Scholarship Program, which she founded to help “these 4th graders get to the 13th grade.” She told the students that after they graduated from high school, they would have up to 10 years to use the scholarship money to fund additional education. Some might choose apprenticeships, others trade schools, and still others two- or four-year colleges. Even more than money, Wilfong wanted to give these 9- and 10-year-olds—many of them Hispanic and Black students from lower-income families in struggling neighborhoods—hope for a successful future.
Wilfong’s fundraising, through events like a children arts auction and a community walkathon, allowed the nonprofit to make the same commitment to the 4th graders of the following year and each of the next 5 years. By the time that first group of students turned 18, Can Do had doubled its scholarship promise, affording each of the graduating seniors access to $2,000 for their future pursuits as well as an additional $5,000 to students finishing a four-year college degree. Can Do had also expanded to include a mentoring component, at the request of the students themselves.
As the 20th anniversary of Can Do approached in 2022, Wilfong was planning to wind down the program, but the scholarship recipients again shaped the program’s future. Now, with their assistance to raise money and recruit volunteers, Wilfong hopes to launch Can Do in other cities. ”We can make such a huge difference with a little effort,” she explains. “It doesn’t take much to change kids’ lives.”
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