AAYI Scholarship HIstory
Since 1978, AAYI has annually awarded academic scholarships to high school graduates in the Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, and Inkster areas and undergraduate Brothers to support their higher educational goals. The scholarships are awarded based on academic performance, financial need, and community service. Originally, the Chapter granted three $500 awards, one each in the Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, and Inkster school districts. The Chapter increased the award to $1,000 in 2004, and added undergraduate scholarships to a Sigma (University of Michigan) and Delta Nu (Eastern Michigan University) Chapter member in 2013. The Ann Arbor-Ypsilanti-Inkster Silhouettes, as partners, have funded one of the scholarships since the program’s inception.
The Chapter has also chosen to honor two of our most respected Brothers by naming a scholarship award in their honor. In 2008, the fund was named for Past Grand Polemarch Robert L. Gordon. In 2011, Inkster Chapter Charter Member and first Polemarch Dr. Harold P. Fowler was added to the fund name.
Fundraising for the scholarships has increased in the past few years such that the Chapter awarded six scholarships in 2012, eleven in 2016, fifteen from 2017-2019, and twenty-four in 2020. The service area has also grown to where applications are invited from districts across Western Wayne County as well as our traditional core group of Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, and Inkster.
Previously, scholarship recipients were honored at chapter meetings or our Black and White Balls. In 2011, Brother James Hawkins chaired a committee that utilized the then newly created Women of Achievement (WOA)t event as the setting to recognize scholarship awardees. By 2015, the WOA event attendance and growing number of scholarship honorees prompted our scholarship committee to create a standalone ceremony separate from WOA. The first Kappa Foundation Scholarship Luncheon took place July 11, 2015.
Since 2015, our annual Scholarship Luncheon has become our most prestigious youth event. Independent format allowed the scholarship recipients to be the focus of the celebration and facilitated the attendance of their families, friends, and school staff to attend at an affordable cost. The committee also created a program made up of personalized presentations to individual graduates.
Since its inception, our scholarship program has provided over $426,000 in scholarships.