LAWTON – The Lawton Business Women’s Club has launched its new endowed scholarship with the Lawton Community Foundation.
The club, which promotes the interests of business and professional women, announced its first contribution to the fund during a lunch meeting Feb. 9 at the Hilton Garden Inn in Lawton.
“This partnership establishes a legacy for LBW that will award scholarships to women attending Cameron University and/or Great Plains Technology Center in perpetuity, no matter what the future holds for our organization,” the club said in a recent post on its Facebook page.
An affiliate of the Oklahoma City Community Foundation, the Lawton Community Foundation was established in 1999 to support charitable interests in Lawton and the surrounding area, according to the LCF website. The foundation gives back to Lawton through community grants, a scholarship program and work with area nonprofits to establish charitable endowments.
LCF started life with about $400,000 on hand and now has a little over $13 million, said Gene Love, past president and current trustee emeritus of the foundation.
“We’ve given back $7.1 million to the community over that period of time to our charitable organizations,” he said in a Feb. 17 interview. “Right now, we have about 50 charitable organizations that are part of the Lawton Community Foundation. Most of the charitable organizations in town, actually.”
Lawton Business Women’s scholarship fund will be Lawton Community Foundation’s newest scholarship endowment, Love said. He said it takes $40,000 to start an endowment, and the foundation has agreed to help the club work toward that goal.
“What we agreed to do with them is that if they raised the first $15,000, we would put $5,000 with that to get them to $20,000,” he said. “And they’re going to try to raise that $15 (thousand) by about the middle of next year.”
Love said Lawton Business Women will need to grow the endowment to $40,000 before the club receives a 5% distribution from the endowment each year.
To get started, the club gave the Lawton Community Foundation a $10,000 check during the Feb. 9 lunch meeting. Several club members made their own contributions so the club could reach the $15,000 goal more quickly.
The meeting, which kicked off a campaign to raise more money for the endowment, generated $1,600 in direct contributions for the cause.
Since then, the club has received commitments to raise the remaining $5,000 that it needed to reach $15,000, President Dani Blackburn said in a Feb. 17 interview. The Lawton Community Foundation will add another $5,000, which will put the endowment at $20,000.
“And so now, we are pushing forward in fundraising to raise the remaining $20,000, so we will be funded and able to award scholarships and participate in earnings,” Blackburn said.
Caption: From the left, Lawton Community Foundation’s past president, Gene Love, and Lawton Business Women President Dani Blackburn hold a replica of a $10,000 check Feb. 9 at the Hilton Garden Inn. The check represented Lawton Business Women’s first contribution to its new endowed scholarship with the foundation.