CCM Launching Dover College Promise Program
Published on November 19, 2019
Program Seeks Transformation Through Education
Impact 100 Garden State,'' a women-led philanthropic group, has awarded County College of Morris a $110,000 grant to launch Dover College Promise, a program designed to prepare students for college studies.
(JPG, 299KB) CCM's Pam Marcenaro, dean of Learning Support and Opportunity Services, and Ed Lopez, an Educational Opportunity Fund counselor, at the Impact 100 Garden State awards dinner.
Working with the private Educational Center in Dover, the new program will provide middle and high school students from low-income families in the Dover community with college-readiness training and support, along with guaranteed scholarships to attend CCM, provided they graduate from high school in good standing. CCM Foundation will provide the scholarships to cover tuition. In the first year, slated to begin fall 2020, the program will enroll 30 high school juniors. At full capacity, the program is expected to serve 146 students annually.
Through the Dover College Promise, we can help uplift a community for generations by providing students with support and access to a quality higher education so they can pursue rewarding careers, said CCM President Anthony J. Iacono.
The new program will provide students with tutoring, college preparation classes, mentoring and community based service learning programs. Once enrolled at CCM, they will continue to receive support services. They also will be able to apply to take part in the Educational Opportunity Fund program, which provides comprehensive resources to foster academic success.
Now, we can officially begin a path of college readiness €“ which is wrapped with support systems for not only the student, but also their families €“ to prepare students in the Dover community to attend CCM, said CCM Dean of Learning Support and Opportunity Services Pam Marcenaro, who will serving as project director.
Dover College Promise stems from CCM's 2018 Dover Initiative, which studied how to better serve that community, along with the college's overall mission to providing exceptional programs and services to a wider community in Morris County.
CCM will work with The Educational Center to identify students most likely to benefit from the program and to offer its support services at that location. The center has been involved with assisting students and families in Dover for more than 20 years.
We're so excited that we can now do more for the Dover community, said Ed Lopez, founder of The Educational Center and an EOF counselor at CCM, who will serve as DCP project coordinator. The best impact you can have in a community is through education. We'll now have even more Dover students earning college degrees and lifting up their families. That's transformational for the community.
"Dover Promise offers the students of our community a unique opportunity to progress their skills, build increased credentials and gain preparation that will position them for competitive careers that will benefit both their own lives and the greater community to which they will contribute, said Dover Schools Superintendent James McLaughlin.
Impact 100 Garden State is a women-led, all-volunteer, philanthropic organization where each member contributes $1,000 a year to award grants to nonprofits that assist underserved populations in Morris, Passaic, Somerset, Sussex and Union counties.