The $225,000 grant will fund seven new Dunham Education Scholars in the 2016-2017 academic year, bringing the total number of Dunham Scholars to nineteen since the scholars model was started in 2012. Four of the seven incoming students are from East Aurora High School. Three of the four are 2016 Golden Apple Scholars, a title awarded to only 200 high school graduates in the state of Illinois.

An additional $25,000 was requested by the Teach First program for future graduating Dunham Scholars who land teaching positions within the Dunham Fund service area, providing them with a $5,000 stipend for classroom supplies and professional development over a two year period.

North Central’s Teach First program began as a partnership with East Aurora School District 131 to encourage East graduates, who would be first-generation college students, to pursue the field of teaching with the hope that they would return to their home school district as educators. Since 2011, the Dunham Fund has supported Teach First to launch other students in the Aurora area into successful teaching careers.

Beginning in 2012, the Fund continued its support of Teach First with an additional Dunham Scholars model and the expansion of the program to recruitment in 21 area home and high schools and to students that are not first-generation.