Today I am featuring the GUMBALL FOUNDATION.
A young man with few prospects of having enough money to pay for his college, created a business out of buying gumball machines and placing them into stores – and earned enough to pay for his education. This inspired him to help others to do the same. Take a look at this video!
Most of the students in the University system have expected to get a college education their whole lives.
However, much of the youth in California cities have to resist the pressures to seek wage pay jobs and other distractions. Many also experience an absence of adequate parental support to pursue higher education.
Although college-age minorities make up almost half of the college age population in California, they are very underrepresented in the University of California and state university system.
In the next two years all the state-funded University outreach programs for high school and middle school students will be eliminated.
In order to continue the achievement of minorities, an independent outreach program is necessary in local, state and national settings to motivate students to pursue heightened goals, such as a college education.
The Gumball Foundation program and curriculum is a self sufficient foundation seeking to engage middle school and high school students in an extracurricular business program.
The Foundation grants scholarships to students who apply and meet the eligible criteria.
The Foundation’s business program component enables students to run their own small scale vending machine business and use that as an incentive to save up and attend a four year institution.
Students will go through a curriculum that will teach them invaluable business skill sets that they can incorporate into their lives post graduation.
Learn more about the story.http://review.ucsc.edu/article.asp?pid=2860 and http://www.ucsc.edu/news_events/text.asp?pid=3477 and http://www.ucsc.edu/news_events/text.asp?pid=3527
Gumball Foundation recipients will attend:
University of California Santa Cruz University of California Los Angeles University of California San Diego University of California Davis University of California Riverside Pasadena City College East Los Angeles Community College Mount St. Mary’s College California State University Los Angeles California State University Northridge and Harvard University
Here is a picture of the awards ceremony – what an impact this organization is having on Social Entrepreneurship in the Inner City of Los Angeles. What can YOU do in your city? http://gumballfoundation.org – go to the site to learn more and how to get involved!
