Hank and Billye Aaron present a check for $104,000 to Atlanta Technical College President Alvetta Peterman Thomas.
Special to the Daily World
The Atlanta Technical College Foundation announced recently that the Hank Aaron Chasing the Dream Foundation has made a generous donation in the amount of $104,000 to establish the Hank Aaron Chasing the Dream Foundation 4 for 4 Endowed Scholarship at Atlanta Technical College. The scholarship is in memory of Dr. Brenda Watts Jones, former president of Atlanta Technical College. Dr. Jones lost her battle with breast cancer in 2007 and was the first female African American technical college president in the State of Georgia.
“We are thrilled that The Hank Aaron Chasing the Dream Foundation has chosen Atlanta Technical College as one of their scholarship institutions. This endowed scholarship will benefit so many of our students who truly are fulfilling their dreams,” said Atlanta Technical College President Dr. Alvetta Peterman Thomas. “Billye and Hank Aaron have shown a long standing commitment to technical education and we are honored to count them as friends of the College.”
The Hank Aaron Chasing the Dream 4 for 4 Endowed Scholarship at Atlanta Technical College marks the fourteenth scholarship established by The Chasing the Dream Foundation and the first scholarship given to a technical college. The endowed scholarship represents the latest installment in the seventeen-year-old Foundation which the Aarons started to give back to the children they believed deserved to be able to chase their dreams.
After achieving the original goal of assisting 755 children (to coincide with the number of Hank Aaron’s lifetime home runs), Major League Baseball and the Boys and Girls Clubs of America joined the Foundation’s efforts and created the “44 Forever” program (to coincide with Hank Aaron’s jersey number) which was funded by Major League Baseball and administered by the Boys and Girls Clubs to support 44 children each year, in perpetuity. Following those initiatives, the “4 for 4 scholarship” program, was according to Billye Aaron, “a natural choice to extend our support to dream chasers new and old, as they enter the next stage of their lives.”
This scholarship reflects the desire of The Hank Aaron Chasing the Dream Foundation to encourage and reward academic achievement, in areas of study leading to public service careers as well as in other professions. Funds at the College will be used to assist at least two students per term at Atlanta Technical College. The first scholarships will be awarded this Fall semester.
Aaron has been a longtime supporter of the College and previously served on the Local Board of Directors. He was a recipient of the Atlanta Technical College Foundation’s Bridge Builder Award in 2002.
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