Regarding America

Gleanings for the Hungry

By Daniel Hamon

Since 1982, volunteers have been coming to Gleanings for the Hungry in Dinuba, CA to play an active role in feeding the poor and needy of the world. Most of these volunteers, about 1,200 during the summer months, are high school students who pay $85 to spend a week working at a fruit line where peaches and nectarines are sorted, cut, dried and then loaded into trucks to be shipped to feed the world's hungry people.

Scholarships for College - The Kalamazoo Promise

By Daniel Hamon

In 2005, a small group of donors started The Kalamazoo Promise, a non-profit corporation that has the goal of providing "each Kalamazoo Public School graduate with the opportunity to attend post-secondary education with up to a 100% tuition scholarship."

The eligibility and requirements seem simple enough: students in the Kalamazoo Public Schools who have graduated and attended four years or more and who go to any public university or community college in the State of Michigan. Once enrolled in college, beneficiaries need to maintain a 2.0 GPA, a minimum of 12 credit hours and make continuing progress toward their degrees.

At a time when a college education is becoming the minimum requirement for entry into the job market, the anonymous donors of The Kalamazoo Promise will surely make a major impact on the lives and standards of living of many Kalamazoo, MI high-school graduates.

Photo - KalamazooPromise.com