UKIAH – Students and family will join Mendocino College Foundation board members, trustees, staff and faculty for the foundation's annual scholarship awards ceremony Friday, May 21, in the Center for the Visual and Performing Arts on the Ukiah campus, 1000 Hensley Creek Road.

The program will begin at 6:30 p.m.

Awards totaling $130,000 will be presented to high school and college students selected to receive 90 scholarships in all.

“We are thrilled to be giving so many scholarships to these very deserving students,” said Foundation Board President Channing Cornell.

Mendocino College Foundation scholarships in the amount of $1,500 each will be awarded to 38 individuals.

The foundation contributes 80 percent of the total dollars awarded to Mendocino College students every year.

In addition, local organizations, businesses and individuals are among the other contributors to scholarship funding.

Donors who make the awards possible will also be acknowledged during the ceremony as foundation board members make the presentations and discuss the importance of the scholarship funds and donations.

Scholarships and awards that honor gifts from individuals' trusts, estates and donations include the Evelyn R. Foote Scholarship, the Thomas M. Evans Sr. Scholarship, the George R. Szanik Scholarship, the Jim Meyer Scholarship, the Carl J. Ehmann Scholarship, the Mary Oosting Scholarship and the Hulda and Alfred Weger Scholarship.

In addition, nursing students are selected for special scholarships, two in memory of Karen L. Atkinson and two honoring the memory of Heidi Marie Daniel. Three students interested in in-home care will receive the Kathleen Kohn Fetzer Foundation Nursing Scholarships.

Under the Directors/Trustees Annual Fund Scholarship, six students will be awarded $1,000 each. The funds are made possible by personal contributions from the Mendocino College Foundation directors and College trustees.

Five more $1,000 awards are made possible from the Bernard Osher Foundation Scholarship. The Osher Foundation donated $25 million to the Foundation for California Community Colleges to establish an endowment for permanent scholarship support.

The Mendocino College Foundation was formed in 1984 with $5,000 in seed funds. It has distributed more than $825,000 in scholarship awards and provided monetary support to educational programs and projects throughout the Mendocino-Lake Community College District.

For additional information about the Foundation, visit its Web site at http://foundation.mendocino.edu.