Their ‘Dream’ May Come True : Foundation Awards 57 College Scholarships to Inner-City Pupils

As the man stepped to the podium in the cafeteria at Audubon Junior High on Friday, most of the 57 seventh-graders present sat without expression, some fiercely chewing gum, others fanning themselves with the programs they had been given.

None knew the exact reason they had been called.

But at the head table before them, a group of distinguished adults watched the man in eager anticipation, glancing fondly at the youngsters while he spoke.

“You have been chosen as recipients of the ‘I Have a Dream’ Scholarship Program,” Thomas van Straaten told the mostly black and Latino students at the school, in the inner-city Crenshaw District. “What we’re promising you is if you graduate from high school and go on to college, we’ll guarantee that we’ll pay each of you a $500 scholarship every year for four years.”

The Audubon students smiled and clapped politely and minutes later, most were busy munching cake and drinking punch.

$342,000 in Scholarships

It was a calm but, sponsors said, an expected response from the young pupils, even though as a group they had just been promised about $342,000 in direct scholarships and counseling and tutoring support by three wealthy sponsors of the “I Have a Dream” Foundation. The national philanthropic organization works to motivate disadvantaged grade-school children to attend college.

The scholarships are the second of their kind to be donated to Los Angeles grade-school pupils. Last June, San Marino resident Win Rhodes-Bea and other descendants of Beverly Hills developer Max Whittier gave $1.5 million in his name to 200 sixth-graders at two South-Central Los Angeles elementary schools.

“I think it will take some time to sink in,” said co-sponsor Thomas van Straaten, who recently sold his successful industrial chemicals company. “Obviously they were pleased about it, but I suspect the impact won’t come until later.”

Clearly Understood

Most parents who attended the presentation, however, clearly understood the presentation.

“I didn’t know how I was going to pay for his college. Now I can try,” said Lucille Roberson, whose son Kevin Ward, 12, received the promise of a scholarship. Roberson, 50, lives on welfare and was herself a high school dropout.

Another parent, William Gibson, a welder from Baldwin Hills, said the money would help send his son Shea to USC, where another son recently graduated.

“I’ll have to work hard, study and be the best student I can be,” said Shea, 11, who admitted he “loved school.” The boy said he would like to study economics in college.

The children all attended Hillcrest Elementary, and most come from low-income, single-parent families who live in housing projects near the Los Angeles Coliseum, said Rigoberto Orozco, the project coordinator for IHAD.

Orozco said that for the next six years, the sponsors will provide services like counseling, tutoring and field trips to motivate the students to attend college. He personally “tracks” their daily progress.

Van Straaten attributed his involvement in the program to the memory of his late wife, a teacher who cared about the underprivileged, and to his own strong feeling about the need to help inner-city youth.

“I’ve been very fortunate, and have been able to provide for the educations of my two teen-agers,” he said. “I just wanted to do something to help other kids.”

Frank and Kathy Baxter and Leonard and M. Greene are the other two sponsors of the Audubon school scholarships. Baxter is president of Jeffries and Co., and Green is a partner in Gibbons, Green and Van Amerougen. Both are Los Angeles-based investment firms.