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For Immediate Release
Contact:
Paul I. Lanning, Ed.D., CFRE
President & CEO
Foundation for California Community Colleges
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Hands Across California will raise awareness of California Community Colleges like never before!
This will be the single largest participatory event in the history of higher education in this nation, and we need your support and participation to ensure its success!
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Dear Colleagues,
There is an excitement building throughout our system among students, faculty, and staff. We've been on the road the past couple of months delivering presentations to groups statewide, starting with the Board of Governors and the Student Senate's Fall Assembly. However, we've held off on a formal systemwide outreach until the time was right. That time is now.
By now many if not all of you have heard about Hands Across California, a momentous event that will generate unprecedented media attention, public awareness, and private support for California's community colleges. Now that classes are back in session and spring is upon us, I am writing to encourage your active engagement with this event and the cause it promotes, the California Community Colleges Scholarship Endowment.
On Sunday, April 17, 2011, history will be made as nearly 2 million people join hands in one continuous line up and down California, all in support of California Community Colleges and their nearly 3 million students.
Hands Across California will raise awareness of California Community Colleges like never before. This will be the single largest participatory event in the history of higher education in this nation, and we need your support and participation to ensure its success.
Just as importantly, it will increase financial support for California Community College students - a truly worthy cause - in a broad grassroots effort to raise permanent scholarship funds. As our students face ever-increasing costs of pursuing an education, the creation and growth of scholarship funds for students will continue to increase in importance.
This is why Hands Across California is so imperative. Funds raised through the event will directly support the California Community Colleges Scholarship Endowment, the permanent fund that provides annual scholarships to thousands of students with the greatest need at every community college in the state.
Thanks to the generosity of The Bernard Osher Foundation, every dollar raised for the Endowment through Hands Across California will be increased by an additional 50 percent, significantly increasing the impact of every donation. We only have until June 30, 2011 to benefit from the Osher Foundation's generous matching opportunity, which is why the timing of Hands Across California is so critical.
Help us tell the world why California Community Colleges are so vital to the future, all while raising money toward scholarships that will support generations upon generations of students.
So what can you do? Here are some priorities we hope everyone connected to California's community colleges will act upon:
1. Make filling the line on April 17 a personal and professional priority for the next 10 weeks.
2. REGISTER today as a participant (it's free) and build your own fundraising page to collect pledges from friends, family, colleagues, and the public at large.
3. CREATE or join a fundraising team for your college or district. Funds raised by anyone signed up with a college's fundraising team will be dedicated to that college's portion of the statewide scholarship endowment, as will the additional Osher matching dollars generated by those funds. Your dollars raised will benefit your college's students annually for generations to come.
4. IDENTIFY and help us reach out to sponsors and celebrities. Mine your personal connections! Already celebrities and political leaders including Quincy Jones, Antonio Villaraigosa, Lily Tomlin, Karen Bass, and Suzanne Whang have signed on, and we have many more exciting announcements in store.
5. PROMOTE this project with everyone you know and deal with, your friends, families, business associates, etc. We need EVERYONE in line on April 17!
6. BRAINSTORM & share your ideas to help make this incredible event successful. E-mail us at info@handsacrosscalifornia.org anytime with thoughts, ideas, and questions.
7. DRIVE traffic to www.handsacrosscalifornia.org and urge people to take their own action to support this tremendous cause.
We've just launched a recruitment effort for paid student representatives at each of our 112 colleges, and applications are already arriving from numerous colleges. You'll find that announcement on our Join the Team page. We are still accepting applicants for these important student leadership roles, and we'll be connecting you directly with the student selected for your campus as soon as he/she is hired.
We've also created a Resources page where you can access a PowerPoint presentation on the event and write-ups for your use at meetings and in discussions with your colleagues. We'll be updating and adding to these resources regularly as new developments occur in the coming days and weeks.
In the coming days we'll be posting the details on the event route turn by turn so you can see how and where the line will proceed. We're working to literally pass through and near as many colleges as possible, and we hope to have those in more remote areas join the line by traveling to the nearest points in the line. We hope to see t-shirts, banners, signs, even marching bands and cheerleaders from every college in the state in line on April 17!
Please join us in this historic effort to create unprecedented public awareness and build a permanent scholarship support for students at every one of our 112 community colleges, support that will benefit students each and every year, forever.
Sincerely,
Paul I. Lanning, Ed.D., CFRE
President & Chief Executive Officer
Foundation for California Community Colleges
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