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00:00My name is Ashley Christopher and I'm the founder and CEO of HBCU Week Foundation.
00:04Please head over to hbcuweek.org and click on our scholarship tab.
00:08There are so many opportunities for students headed to HBCUs.
00:12Awards ranging between $10,000 and $132,000 per student.
00:17I hope to see your application.
00:18Well, it all started back in 2017 here in my hometown of Wilmington, Delaware.
00:23Employed as the special assistant to Mayor Mike Perzycki.
00:26He asked me to come up with some programming that was pointed at some of our underserved
00:30communities.
00:31So I wanted to focus in on education as a two-time HBCU alum graduating from Howard
00:37University in 2007 and the David A. Clark School of Law in 2013.
00:42These institutions mean more to me than I can actually articulate.
00:46So I wanted to do my best to expose as many students in my hometown to the opportunities
00:51of attending an HBCU.
00:53So I started it off with a small college fair-like activation back in 2017, expecting about 200
00:59students to attend.
01:00But we got 700 students year one.
01:02So I knew then that if there was an appetite for an HBCU experience like that in Wilmington,
01:08Delaware, such a small space, that this is something that had potential to be taken across
01:12the country.
01:13I tell the students that I speak to all the time, it's your once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
01:18to not be the minority.
01:19You can look to your left and right, see people who look like you, same drive, goals, aspirations.
01:24And you have the luxury of carrying each other to the finish line over those four years.
01:28Like going to an HBCU is really a community.
01:31Like you find your people and these are lifelong connections that you have.
01:35If you're not showing up in class, your professor may be knocking on your dorm door or calling
01:39you.
01:39Same with your friends, right?
01:40Because it becomes a collective experience of people who all look like you to succeed
01:45and to thrive.
01:47And I think that every Black student that wants a higher education deserves the opportunity
01:50to at least explore the option of an HBCU because it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
01:55Our laser focus is on our college fair and our scholarship program for students that
02:00are headed to HBCUs because our core intention is to make sure that any Black student that
02:05wants to go to an HBCU can do so without having to accumulate crippling student debt.
02:11So we go out to a lot of our partners and advocate somewhat aggressively to get these
02:15dollars.
02:16We don't give any scholarship away that's less than $10,000 and we also have full rides
02:22that are available.
02:22So we're giving everything between $10,000 to $132,000 per student through our partnerships.
02:29So these are corporate partners that are leaning in to underwrite these scholarships.
02:33Our most popular scholarship opportunity is our FOSSE scholarship.
02:37It's called the Future of STEM Scholars Initiative.
02:40I was able to broker a $40 million partnership with the American Chemistry Council.
02:44So we are now able to give $1,000, $40,000 scholarships to students headed to an HBCU
02:50that are studying STEM.
02:51And that opportunity comes along with a mentor in the chemical industry, an internship and
02:56the goal is post-graduation job placement.
02:58We've given away more than 550 of those scholarship awards so far and those students
03:02are thriving.
03:04We have 110 students on that scholarship at North Carolina A&T, 75 of them at Howard
03:09University.
03:10We have 44 HBCUs represented with FOSSE scholars.
03:14This year, we're excited to announce our first full ride opportunity.
03:17That's the $132,000 scholarship that's underwritten by one of our corporate partners,
03:22AstraZeneca.
03:24And they're giving away this money so that we can make sure that three deserving students
03:28have that full ride opportunity.
03:30Stephen A. Smith is our brand ambassador and he has been such a gift to the foundation.
03:35He uses his platform to expand our platform.
03:38And since he's done that, we've had some incredible opportunities.
03:41Because of Stephen A. Smith and David Roberts over at ESPN, we now have the opportunity
03:46to do HBCU Week at Disney World.
03:49So Disney is now a partner of ours and we're actually headed to Disney World to do HBCU
03:53Week later this month.
03:54But it's given us such an incredible opportunity to spread the word about who we are and what
03:58we do.
03:59But most importantly, let the students across the country know that these opportunities
04:03are available.
04:04I'm happy to see that it's catching on and people know the money is there because it's
04:08absolutely necessary.
04:10A lot of our students that do come to HBCUs, not all, but some of them are first generation
04:16college students.
04:16So they may not know what the first thing that they have to do is to even get into school
04:22or how to pay for it.
04:23Nevertheless, I just want to make sure that all of those high school students know that
04:27these opportunities are available for them.