Celebrating Black History Month

By ScholarMatch’s Board of Directors

At ScholarMatch, we celebrate and support Black students every day. We believe that Black history should be celebrated every day because Black history is American history. We hope that our stakeholders (funders, allies, students, coaches, etc.) are clear about our expectations and that they understand and recognize the social, economic, educational, and historical reasons and the lingering effects of why our Black students continue to experience inequities today:

Historical segregation of school systems that were ‘separate’ but not ‘equal.’

Redlining in Black neighborhoods that exacerbated the lack of resources in communities where lower property values provided fewer resources for equality in schools.

Less generational wealth to pass along from parents to their children to fund education.

ScholarMatch is working to dismantle inequities in the education of Brown and Black/African American students in California through our Scholars and Destination College programs. All students must be able to have the opportunity to attend and graduate from college, and we provide services to our students to even the playing field. We do this by providing free college counseling services for Brown and Black/African American students, especially those who are attending under-resourced high schools where counseling resources are not available by:

• Specifically, recruiting and serving Brown and Black/African- American students in California and across the U.S. to benefit our students
• Training virtual college counselors to work with students from schools where counselors have multiple responsibilities, large caseloads, and limited resources to provide one-on-one support for college application completion
• Explicitly and intentionally recruiting Brown and Black/African-American virtual counselors so that, whenever possible, we can provide role models for our students who look like them and have similar lived experiences