Dear AAUW Ann Arbor Friends,

We are excited to share with our membership the exciting news about our recent branch scholarship support and our newest Named Gift Honoree award.

It is not news that our annual fundraiser, the 2020 book sale, was canceled—but the great news is how generous our members were when we appealed for individual donations to continue providing student scholarships this year.

The results of this appeal were revealed recently at our winter celebration Zoom meeting.  Here now once again are the details of this year’s scholarship awards:

AAUW Funds committee scholarship recommendations and board approval of those allocations are as follows:

Member donations of $14,000 were matched by $10,000 from branch funds to arrive at this impressive $24,000 total in scholarship awards.  How great is that?!

Through your generosity, these awards will affect and change the lives of students in immeasurable ways.  If you would like to know more about these funds, we encourage you to read pages 20-21 in our new Directory where an excellent description of each of these funds may be found.

On a national level, AAUW Ann Arbor has supported many fellowships and grants over the years.  In the past two years, AAUW Ann Arbor has helped support a Ph.D. in Analytic Chemistry, an MBA student and a student specializing in Educational Leadership and Policy.  Two of these recent national fellowship recipients attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

At Washtenaw Community College your generous support currently has helped a nursing student, a student studying Health Care Foundations and a student specializing in welding technology.

This year at EMU we are supporting a student studying special education with an autism disorders endorsement and we provided financial assistance to two students last year.

At the University of Michigan, our Mary Markley and CEW+ endowments are currently supporting students studying political science, nursing, vocal performance, sociology, general studies and conservation.

Those who heard Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha speak at our November Zoom branch meeting heard her tell us that she had received an AAUW Ann Arbor Mary Markley scholarship as an undergraduate during her studies at UM Ann Arbor—and she was able to send us the image of her original award letter, now posted on our branch website.  This was so exciting to so many of our members, as it is a rare event when you get to see exactly how far your donation has gone in the world!

If you were unable to connect to our Zoom winter celebration on December 9, you may see—or relive—that wonderful event in the Members-Only section on our branch website.  Four of our scholarship recipients provided delightful videos to tell us a little more about themselves—and to express their thanks for our support.  In addition, Polly presented our latest Named Gift Honoree award to Fran Lyman and you may hear that presentation and learn some fun facts about Fran as well.

At our winter celebration it has been a tradition to pass around green and red bags and collect donations for various important funds and programs.  This year was a bit different out of necessity, and instead of having passed around colorful bags, we continue to encourage you to give online to AAUW’s Greatest Needs Fund.  Our Named Gift Honorees are celebrated in recognition of our support to our national AAUW organization and the Greatest Needs Fund allows AAUW the flexibility to respond rapidly to new and emerging challenges facing women and girls and to utilize your gift where it is needed most.  Ann Arbor Branch has been steadfast in its support of AAUW’s mission of gender equity for women and girls through advocacy, education and research.  Online donation is easily done by going to the AAUW.org website and clicking on the Donate button in the upper right-hand corner.  This year your donations are being generously matched through December 31!

Thanks once again to everyone for your continuing generosity and support for AAUW.  Here’s wishing a happy, enjoyable, peaceful and safe holiday season to all!

Kim Clark and Polly Pan

Ann Arbor AAUW Funds Co-Directors