About the Black Canadian Scholarship Fund
by John Harewood
UPWARD AND ONWARD
One feature that I like about Black History Month is the opportunity it offers to learn about organizations which have been contributing, often without fanfare, to our community for years.
So, have you heard about the Black Canadian Scholarship Fund?
Not to worry if you haven’t. I don’t think that it is ever too late to hear an inspiring story.
This one began as the dream of the late Dr. Horace Alexis.
He had been a well-known and respected family physician in Ottawa for years. Still, he felt the need to fill a void created by the lack of Blacks in his own and other professions. The need became more urgent when he realized that cutbacks to university funding, by the provincial government in the 90’s, and overall expenses would severely limit the chances of bright young Blacks attending university.
As a true visionary, he saw a future in which that deficiency had to be corrected.
But he was also a doer, an agent of change. Never forgetting his own struggle, he literally put his money where his mouth was, pulled $5,000 from his own pocket and deposited it with the Ottawa-Carleton Community Foundation (now the Ottawa Community Foundation) and joined by Pat Holas, a local teacher, he signed an agreement with it on May 1, 1996.
That’s how the Black Canadian Scholarship Fund was founded.
That sounds easy enough, but he knew that he had taken a risk; however, he wasn’t at all uncertain about his next move. He had a plan and mission which were as clear as his dream and vision. Here it was!
The Foundation would invest and manage the funds. He would recruit a Donors’ Committee comprising of fifteen volunteers who would hold fundraising events such as a Night at the Races, a Spring and End of the year Dinner/Dance. A 5k Walkathon and a Golf Tournament were added later as were private dinners and occasional raffles .
With the proceeds from those events and donations, the investment would generate dividends. From these, scholarships would be offered to black applicants who were graduating from high schools in the nation’s capital, had been admitted to university, and who had met the criteria of academic excellence, community service and financial need.
From that historic day in May, 1996 until his death twenty-three years later in February, 2019, Horace Alexis became a passionate, indefatigable, charming and relentless fundraiser. He was forever focussed on the target of $1,000,000, which he felt the Fund would have to reach to keep the initial investment vigorous and able to provide scholarships in perpetuity.
You couldn’t meet him in his office, on the street or elsewhere without hearing about the Fund, being coaxed into becoming a volunteer, joining the Donors’ Committee, or becoming a Donor yourself.
His tenacity and determination have paid off. Here are some highlights in the Fund’s story!
- It awarded its first scholarship to Maggie Fondong in 1998. She successfully completed her B.Sc at Trent University three years later.
- It has offered at least one non-renewable scholarship every year since 1998.
- It celebrated its quarter century of success with a Commemorative Virtual Gala evening on September 25, 2021.
- It aims to repeat last year’s success when, for the second consecutive year, it awarded five (5) scholarships, each of $6,000.
- The total number of recipients is now 73.
- They reflect the Canadian mosaic, hailing originally from such countries as the Bahamas, Canada, Egypt, Haiti, Jamaica, Eritrea, Kenya, the Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Rwanda, South Sudan and South Africa.
Not only has the life of each of these young people been changed forever, those who have already become university graduates have begun to contribute to their own and the wider community in professions ranging from Accounting, Finance, Commerce, Engineering, Medicine, Law, Information Technology and Music to Nursing, Education, Mass Communications, Social Work, Criminology, Bio-Chemistry and Physiology—- and the list goes on.
It is also remarkable that Dr. Alexis was able to motivate and mobilize continuously a host of volunteers, donors, patrons and sponsors from many different sectors of the Ottawa community over the years, towards the achievement of an objective which has already benefited a generation of young people. In 2016, the University of Ottawa Alumni Association recognized and honoured him for his outstanding contribution to the Ottawa community.
So far, serving the community in Canada’s two official languages, the Fund has been led by six Presidents. Two of them have been francophone and one, the first female, Elizabeth December, who kept it on course for a record seven years, during which donations increased, despite the pandemic.
The Fund started the new year with a new Board of Directors elected last November. They will continue the crucial commitment to promoting the organization as the most dynamic in the region, still pursuing the original objective of empowering our youth through education.
The Board comprises seven members, including some new faces: Awo Nuuh and Anne Senior. Board members are:
- Awo Nuuh, the 2001 recipient who is the Treasurer.
- Anne Senior, long-standing donor, supporter and now Secretary.
- Frederick Lavertu, who wrote the Constitution, has returned as Vice-President,
- Elizabeth December remains on the Board as Past President
- Kenton Wiltshire has moved from the position of Secretary to become the Donors’ Committee representative
- Christiane Millet-Alexis, ever ready to preserve the legacy of her late husband, retains her position as Permanent Member of the Board
- John Harewood, a member of the Fund since its first year, who served for years as Chair of the Selection and Interviews Committees, is now President of the organization.
We thank those of you who already know about the Fund and who have supported us. We could not have reached our 27th year without you. We greet warmly those of you who are meeting us for the first time. Give a thought to sharing your time and talents with us as volunteers. And please visit our website at www.bcsf.ca to find out more about us, our events and how you might help and donate.
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John Harewood holds an MA in Classics from the University of Toronto and an MEd from the University of Ottawa. He is a retired Educator with professional experience first, as Principal of the Community School in Hopedale, Labrador, and later, as Professor of Classics and Academic Advisor in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Ottawa.
His community service in Ottawa spans decades, including former Columnist for the Newspaper Contrast, Producer and contributor for Third World Players’ programs on CKCU-FM radio , member of the Errol Barrow Memorial Trust of Canada and of the Donors’ Committee of the Black Canadian Scholarship Fund soon after its founding in 1996.
In addition to articles in the newspaper and several appearing in the online Journal First Reads, he has published Adventures of Namby and Pamby and Barbadiana Canadiana ( 2017).