Spelman students start emergency scholarship fund

Florence Adibu was overwhelmed when she first visited Spelman College on Founders Day.

“Spelman was decorated. Everyone was dressed in white. I can’t explain the feeling that came over me,” said Adibu, a sophomore international studies and sociology major from Chicago. “I just know that I’m supposed to be here.”

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Florence Amene Adibu hopes the Student Government Association’s ‘A Dream Not Deferred’ scholarship program will help students like her get the money they need to stay at Spelman College.

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Staying there has been a financial battle, though, with fresh skirmishes threatening her enrollment every semester.

To help students like Adibu, Spelman’s Student Government Association has donated one-third of its annual $30,000 budget to start an emergency scholarship fund: “A Dream Not Deferred.”

“We want to help students who have exhausted all resources,” said Miriam Archibong, SGA president. “It is very disheartening to know that some of my sisters won’t be able to return.”

On-campus students pay about $30,000 annually to attend Spelman. Some of their families have been hit by the economic crisis, while others have seen promised loans fall through, Archibong said.

As last semester ended, about 500 of Spelman’s 2,100 students had balances due, said Eloise Alexis, vice president for college relations. Those students could take exams, but couldn’t get their grades until their balances were paid, she said.

The new scholarship fund focuses on helping freshmen and sophomores. It meets halfway the “Starfish Initiative,” a fund established last year by Spelman’s president to help financially endangered seniors and juniors complete their education.

The Starfish program, which raised about $500,000 from alumnae, parents and others, helped about 100 Spelman students pay their bills, Alexis said. Other students found other resources. About 50 students, ultimately, were unable to return, she said.

SGA began its own aid effort last semester by persuading Aramark, the college’s food service provider, to offer 16 semester-long meal plan scholarships. The student group also donated $4,000 of its own budget for eight book scholarships.

To help raise funds for the new emergency scholarships, Adibu and other students have begun a personalized letter-writing campaign to solicit potential donors.

“I feel like Spelman isn’t done with me yet,” Adibu said. “All of the things I have learned … I just feel like I can’t learn them anywhere else.”