Former Basking Ridge Center Offers Higher Education Funding to Low-Income Individuals

Up to $2,500 could be available in a scholarship to financially disadvantaged area residents.

The Paige Whitney Scholarship Fund is accepting applications for a scholarship that on average is $1,000 per semester, but may be up to $2,500, for residents of Somerset, Morris, Union, Middlesex, Essex and Hunterdon counties.

To be eligible, residents must read and write English, have a high school diploma or GED, be a legal citizen in good standing, and must attend an accredited college or trade school in New Jersey, maintaining a GPA of 2.5 or higher.

The application involves submitting two letters of recommendation, tax returns, and transcript information, as well as writing three essays. More details and the application are available on the scholarship website. The deadline for applications is May 1, 2010 for the fall semester of 2010 and November 1, 2010 for the spring semester of 2011.

The scholarship will be provided for any type of higher education, whether community college, trade school or 4-year college, "as long as they are trying to educate themselves and working hard to do so," said Mary Pavlini, a trustee of the scholarship fund. Recipients can apply to renew the scholarship every semester if they maintain the 2.5 GPA, and may even continue to apply for it if they graduate from a trade school or community college and then want to attend a traditional 4-year school.

The fund, established in 2007, grew out of the Paige Whitney Babies Center, founded in 1992 in memory of Paige Whitney Imperatore, who died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome at the age of two months.

The center was located in the manse behind the Presbyterian church, and provided necessities for babies in low-income families, giving them diapers, wipes, shampoo, clothing and other items every two weeks, as well as furniture and other bigger items twice a year. During the 16 years that the center existed, it also gave scholarships to some parents whose babies were part of the center.

"The best way for parents to become self-sufficient was to become educated, [to] make available funding for them to go to college if they wanted to," Pavlini said.

The Paige Whitney Babies Center grew every year, until it was caring for 450 babies, and became more work than the center had the manpower to provide. The center was shut down, and in 2007 the Paige Whitney Scholarship Fund was founded in 2007 to carry on the legacy of the center.

"We really recognized that the best way to have an impact was educating them, and then many of them were self-sufficient and able to support their own children," Pavlini said. "That's when we morphed into a scholarship fund."