Veronica Wilkerson Johnson

Appeal Letter/IDSL 860

April 18, 2014
Dr. Horatio Lancaster, President
Central Arkansas Education Fund
4553 N. Giving St.
Smallholler, Arkansas
Dear Dr. Lancaster,
Thank you for the generous support of the Central Arkansas
Education Fund that has provided such excellent outcomes
for the Hope Community College Minority STEM Fund. Your
agency has been a generous partner in our quest to help
more minority students and women obtain college degrees
in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math - the STEM
professions. I hope that we can count on your continued
support as we launch our HOPE for the FUTURE $5 Million
Dollar Campaign this month to help recruit and enroll many
more deserving minority students and women in our STEM
programs this Fall.
Dr. Lancaster, we are asking today that your agency commit
$5,000 toward this vital campaign fund, or if you will pledge
$10,000 over the coming year to help us in the realization of
our important mission.
Your agencys support for the Hope Community College
Minority STEM Fund is helping us to train future scientists
and engineers, physicians and astronauts! You've heard the
old saying, "A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste" often
intoned by the United Negro College Fund (UNCF). Well, with
your continued support, we can lay waste to that claim as we
educate many more brilliant minds to insure Americas
scientifically secured future.
In his 2004 landmark work, The Biology of Empowerment, Dr.
Lee Pulos stated that genius is lying dormant in all of us. At

the Hope Community College of Central Arkansas we have

embraced the idea of helping more minority students and
women obtain college degrees in Science, Technology,
Engineering and Math, the STEM professions.
Our research, along with experience at our community
college, has shown that among our underrepresented
students are many brilliant scientists, physicians and
engineers waiting to be discovered - young people who have
the ability, but do not have the educational backgrounds and
financial provisions needed for them to succeed. With the
continued help of your agency, this can change. We will
guarantee that ALL of your funding dollars are dedicated to
the educational pursuits of our students for scholarships,
recruitment, tutoring and mentoring programs that will aid
our minority students and women in the sciences and math.
Your dollars will also immediately help us provide skilled preengineering training, aeronautics technology courses and
journeyman institutes.
With help from donors like your agency we have aided
disadvantaged students across our campus. In fiscal year
2013, we served more than 1,000 students through our
advanced developmental courses that help students
accelerate to science curriculum classes in two semesters
with tutoring and special counseling. Also, some 800 of our
students completed Associates Degrees in the sciences and
mathematics in 2013, and many went on to enroll in 4-year
STEM programs at colleges and universities across the
nation.
We know that there are many more talented students out
there that your support will greatly help. Students like our
esteemed alumnus and local hero, Dr. Julian Hightower, who
rose to the highest ranks at NASA as an astrophysicist, but
began as a student from an indigent, African American
migrant family here in Smallholler. We are very proud that
Hope Community College had the chance to contribute to
the education and stellar career of this great man, and with

your generous donations we can help many more students

succeed as well!
Please give your donation today by calling Janice Reeves,
Director of Major Gifts at the Hope Community College Office
of Development, at (800) 232-HOPE. With your help more
recruitment, scholarships, and tutoring can be provided for
our future scientists. Your gifts are tax deductible and will
make a meaningful difference to the lives of our students.
Again, thank you for all of your support in the past. We hope
that we can count on your agency to donate $5,000 $10,000 again this campaign year to help our students
secure their marvelous futures.
P.S. Your support is critical to the advancement of our
students, and I would like to count on your support by May
30, 2014. Thank you for responding today.