Hamilton College, acting on the recommendation and generosity of several alumni trustees, has established an endowed scholarship fund for the families of the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist acts.
"The September 11th Scholarship Fund at Hamilton College" honors the memory of Hamilton alumni Arthur J. Jones III '86, Adam J. Lewis '87 and Sylvia San Pio Resta '95, who were among the thousands of people killed in the World Trade Center attacks in New York.
The fund is meant to "ensure the future for a group of young people whose guardianship, however tangentially, now falls to us," according to an anonymous donor instrumental in starting the fund.
"Despite our anguish and grief, despite the uncertainty we may feel about the future, we instinctively want to reach out with kindness, compassion and care to those whose lives have been violently and irrevocably altered," said Hamilton President Eugene M. Tobin.
"These thoughts and actions, arising even in the midst of mourning, define our truest natures and make us what we are," Tobin continued, "a civilized people capable of great love, even for those we may never come to know personally."
The income from this new fund will provide scholarships to attend Hamilton College. Preference will be given first to the direct descendants of Hamilton alumni and second to descendants of other victims killed on Sept. 11. Should an entering class not have any members in need belonging to these first two groups, the fund will provide scholarship support for victims of other national calamities.
The college has already received a lead gift toward the fund's $1 million goal. Additional information is available on the Hamilton Web site at https://www.hamilton.edu/makeagift/september11/ or by calling (315) 859-4412.
