The Scholarship Fund for Inner-City Children provides scholarships for needy children to attend private and parochial schools in New Jersey. Our mission is to provide disadvantaged youngsters with the opportunity to receive quality value-based education. Our scholarships are given to students primarily attending Catholic elementary and secondary schools in New Jersey's Essex, Hudson, Bergen and Union Counties. We are the only organization in this area that provides such assistance.

Our scholarships are based on need without regard to race, religion or ethnic background. Most of our recipients are African-American or Hispanic children attending inner-city schools, and more than half of them are non-Catholic. Our scholarships are not handouts; they are shared investments in people and in the future.

Scholarships to Catholic schools are particularly important for inner-city youngsters. For them, a Catholic school education that stresses the 3Rs, the work ethic and the values that built our nation represents a golden opportunity to break out of the cycle of poverty and become productive adults free from government subsidies. In brief, The Scholarship Fund gives poor children a choice, a chance and hope for the future.

The generosity of our supporters is having a significant positive impact as more than ninety percent of our scholarship recipients enter college. This is remarkable when one considers the difficult socio-economic circumstances under which most of them live. It also proves that poor children can do as well as their more affluent counterparts, when they are given equal educational opportunities.

Since our first year of operation in 1983, we have funded more than 40,000 scholarships totaling more than $22 million. Our partnership with the Children's Scholarship Fund, a national organization, has enabled us to increase our funding dramatically over the past eight years. Together we are funding scholarship programs for children in Newark, Jersey City, and Elizabeth.

All of our scholarship funds are raised from concerned individuals, corporations and foundations that share the view that many of our local and national problems can be solved only by making people self-sufficient through education.