November 29, 2024
Hello Friends!
It’s been too long since we’ve written to express our appreciation for your support of Black Friday College Fund. Today, nine years after the idea for this scholarship was conceived, I want to once again let you know how much the board and I appreciate your investment in young people and their dreams! Without you, we could not have done this work for this long!
I also want to offer some important updates on where we’re headed.
First, Congratulations to our 2024 scholar Meseret Bitner, of Louisville, Kentucky! Meseret studies nursing at Cedarville University in Ohio. In her application essay, Meseret said she aligns with our belief in causing “good trouble” by “challenging the status quo in order to bring attention to issues such as injustice or where others may have been marginalized.” And that’s something she has already done as a young adult.
While being encouraged by others to go directly to college after high school, Meseret instead spent a year in Mexico working with an organization that seeks “to make change in social structures and help the marginalized.” She says having been born in Ethiopia and then raised in the United States taught her to appreciate many different cultures and to be inclusive of people who are different from her.
We’re delighted to partner with her in achieving her goals and dreams, as we’ve done for 10 other impressive scholars–some of whom have graduated from college and are building their lives and careers while others are still pursuing their educational goals.
We also want to welcome Terrance Woolbright, my late son Gabriel’s high school best friend, to the board. Terrance brings a unique perspective to the work as both a civil servant and a former U.S. Marine. He loved and supported Gabe during a pivotal time in his life and we’re grateful to have his input now.
And, we want to thank Alfonso Henderson for his years of service and wish him well as he pursues other priorities.
Dave Woo, Lola Olateju, Michael Scheller, and I have grown close while working together over the past eight years. Like the world around us, we’ve navigated significant changes and challenges together.
We’ve celebrated marriages and births, suffered pandemic-related unemployment, moves, career and parenting challenges, divorce, and loss of loved ones, including my dad Richard Gifford, who, along with my mom Carol Gifford, generously supported our work from its inception.
We’re all tired, but still here making good trouble together! But now, we’ve decided that it’s time to wind this work down. Here's why:
I was inspired to launch BFCFund in response to a 2015 Black Lives Matter call to invest in the community on Black Friday rather than in systems of oppression via excessive consumer spending.
Gabriel’s birthday fell on the annual shopping day that year and, for my own health and well being, I needed to move on from activism around his cause of death to work that celebrated his life.
My parents, Gabe’s dad, Jeff Scheller, and a few of his close college friends agreed to join me in this venture and together we developed a scholarship fund that would offer $2000 tuition grants plus $1000 in reserve for students to use for mental health services or tutoring.
However, none of the scholars we’ve supported have requested funds for tutoring or counseling. Instead, they’ve requested funds for books, equipment and travel. So, we expanded the parameters to meet their actual needs.
Broadening our focus eliminated the one element that makes BFCFund unique. Meanwhile, for a variety of reasons, it’s been challenging to recruit scholars ever since the pandemic lockdown.
Because there are many other worthy scholarship funds with similar goals, we’ve decided to offer scholarships in 2025 and 2026, culminating in ten years of investment in the dreams of BIPOC students. We’ve also decided to offer these final scholarships to young people who participate in Thrive Collective programming.
Thrive Collective is a New York City based nonprofit that creates hope and opportunity through arts and mentoring in public schools. I’ve known Thrive’s director Jeremy Del Rio for many years and and worked with him for the past eight years, first doing communications work and now managing mural projects in under-resourced neighborhoods around the city.
We chose this course of action because Thrive’s mission is aligned with our own and because it alleviates some of the pressure of recruiting applicants that we’ve struggled with over the past few years.
Black Friday College Fund has never been about anything but honoring and continuing my late son’s life and legacy (along with that of other young people we've known and loved who didn't live to see their dreams realized).
From the time he died by suicide, I was committed to not allowing his remarkable life to be defined by his death. Your support has helped me do that and I couldn't be more grateful!
A wonderful side benefit of this work has been the space it has created for those of us on the board to reconnect with others who loved and continue to love Gabe. We have built or rebuilt cherished friendships even though he is gone. I trust that he is smiling down on all of the good work and love we’ve shared.
As we wind down, we’ll be gathering and sharing updates on our scholars and all that we’ve accomplished with your support.
Although we won't be actively fundraising, we will continue accepting donations to help us meet our goal of awarding scholarships through 2026.
Until then, thank you from the bottom of my heart for partnering with us in this work. Together we’ve made a real difference in the lives of young people.
Happy Holidays!
Appreciatively,
Christine Di Pasquale, BFCFund co-founder/board member