Endowed Scholarships

Class of 1952

Friends and Former Classmates
Organize Fundraising Challenge

Fellow Earlham College Class of '52 graduates Eldon Kronewitter and Esther White Sunderland each credit the other for the initiative to establish a matching gift challenge to their classmates. However, it's evident that their ambitious challenge is a collaborative effort.

The matching gift challenge was born out of conversations between Kronewitter and Sunderland in anticipation of their 55-year reunion. Every class celebrating a reunion is approached by the College and encouraged to consider making a gift to Earlham. The two friends had embraced the opportunity and wanted to aim a bit higher. They hoped to raise enough class funds to endow a scholarship, something that had been a goal in their minds for quite a while.

"Our class has always given a class gift, and I was talking to Esther about coming up with an endowed class scholarship, which is only $50,000," Kronewittter explained. "I asked her how much she was going to give to Earlham and she agreed to make a large portion available for our class fund. She told her husband Jim about it, and he recommended that she make it a challenge."

"Actually," Sunderland interjected, "it was Eldon who suggested we do a challenge!"

Although the two of them may never agree on the true initiator of the matching gift challenge, the Earlham community can agree that this initiative will impact the lives of many students for generations to come. Through the challenge, every gift given to the Class of 1952 fund will be matched by Sunderland, up to $100,000.

"There are a lot of students here who aren't wealthy and I just like the idea of scholarships in general," Sunderland said. "Because of the need for gifts of this kind, it seemed appropriate for me."

It's also an appropriate approach for the Class of 1952, with its history of generosity to Earlham dating back its college years. Even as students, they had a sense of responsibility to support the College. When their graduation neared, many of them signed their security deposits over to Earlham to establish their class fund, something that had not been done on that scale before. These gifts financed the John Hendron Memorial Gateway, a brick structure placed at the entrance to the main driveway honoring a classmate who was killed in a car accident not long before. The class was so organized in their fundraising efforts that the gateway was fully funded and constructed in time for their commencement.

Since that time, many of Kronewitter and Sunderland's classmates have continued their generosity toward Earlham, which makes the recent matching gift challenge a realistic and reasonable effort to undertake.

The two former classmates worked with Earlham's Development Office to iron out the details, and Kronewitter himself sent letters and e-mails to his classmates informing them of the challenge. Since the challenge was issued, many members of the Class of '52 have stepped up, although more gifts are still needed to reach the $100,000 mark.

"It's doing very well," Senior Development Officer John Mohr said, "and members of the class still have a full year to make a gift toward this program."

"Earlham made it easy for us to run this challenge," Kronewitter said. "When it's all over, I think we'll have an endowed, unrestricted scholarship in excess of $200,000.

"Our class will have finished what we set out to do when we graduated."

—Ellen Blevens
Development Communications Coordinator