On Monday, May 15, 2017 the Rush County Community Foundation [RCCF] hosted their annual Scholarship Celebration and distributed 125 scholarship awards to 84 students. These scholarships were awarded from 72 RCCF endowed scholarship funds and from the Lilly Endowment which funds the Rush County Lilly Scholar award. An enthusiastic group of 250 fund donors, scholarship recipients, board members, and friends of the foundation gathered at the Rushville Consolidated High School cafeteria for the celebration to award over $166,000 to our Rush County students.

Alisa Winters, RCCF Executive Director warmly welcomed the group, “tonight is a special evening for each of us, as scholarship recipients, guests, donors, and Foundation friends, and we are so glad to have each and every one of you here with us this evening.” Speaking about the Foundation Winters continued, “Because of our donors, the Rush County Community Foundation is proud to be concluding our 25th anniversary year. This milestone has truly been a time for celebration – in 25 years our assets have grown to over 16 million dollars and we have given over 10 million dollars exclusively within Rush County. The Foundation now holds 193 endowment funds, funds that are permanently invested to give back to the charitable good of our community – forever.” She went on to highlight the important role of RCCF volunteers, these dedicated individuals provide invaluable leadership on the Board, the Scholarship Nominating Committee, and on several other committees at the Foundation.

RCCF Program Coordinator, Kendra Steible gave an update on the scholarship selection process. Steible spoke about the increasing costs of higher education and how the Foundation is seeking to respond to this change, while remaining true to the donor intent of each named scholarship fund. One example she cited was awarding Frank and Frances Hilburt Scholarships. The Hilburt fund was establish with the intent to provide support to a student or students who have finished one year of college or more, and plan to practice their profession in Rush County. The fund defines “profession” as working in the field of medicine, law, pharmacy, teaching, accounting, or nursing. Over the years as the fund has grown the Foundation has been able to give scholarships more broadly than these narrow parameters; but as the cost of school has gone up RCCF is making an effort to make larger scholarship grants that will have a meaningful impact on a student’s ability to finish college. So in the future, funds including the Hilburt will focus more heavily on the founding parameters, generating fewer, but larger scholarship grants.

Another scholarship fund that was highlighted, during the presentation of scholarships was the Jinks Family Scholarship. This is the first year this fund has reached full maturity. The Jinks fund was established by Sara Jinks with the intent to provide one year of tuition for a college student in a program which will lead to a career in teaching. This year two recipients each received $8,000.

After all the scholarships were awarded James Brashaber, Rush County’s 2013 Lilly Scholar offered his thanks to the community, the Foundation, his parents, and to Lilly Endowment for the opportunity to represent our county in the Lilly Endowment Community Scholarship Program over the last four years at Depauw University. He spoke of his accomplishments as evidence of the incredible preparation and support given by Rush County Schools and our community at large. His heartfelt thanks and charge to give back underscored the themes of the celebration.

Meeting the philanthropic needs of Rush County since 1991, The Rush County Community Foundation, Inc. is a nonprofit public charity established to serve donors, award grants and scholarships, and provide leadership to enrich and enhance the quality of life in Rush County, Indiana, not only today, but for our future generations. For more information please visit or contact the Foundation office at 117 N. Main St., Rushville, IN 46173.

The 2017 scholarships awarded are as follows: