Please go here to meet our 2018 Scholarship Winners.
Attention: College Students and Parents of College Students. If you are headed out to university this Fall please be aware of two sneaky collegiate financial aid tricks to separate you from your hard earned cash. Each is summarized in the post linked below.
Scholarship Displacement – Different colleges and universities set a baseline level at which the amount of private scholarship moneys that a student has earned outside of the attending university, is folded back into the university (and not into the student’s private account). That level set is arbitrary and varies from University to University.
Example – Kennedy Mapes OHS c/o 2018 earned $2000 from the 2018 Building A Better World Scholarship. She also won a $4000 Community Foundation Scholarship spread out over four years, as well as $1000 from a private third source. Lake Superior State, where she will attend in the Fall, has a $2000 scholarship displacement limit. After her Lake State financial aid package counts $1000 from Community Foundation and $1000 from third party source she’s reached her Displacement limit. If we send our Scholarship to Lake State in Kennedy’s name – our $2000 replaces an amount that she was already been awarded by the University. They reduce her previous total of school sponsored scholarships by $2000. In essence our $2000 award to Kennedy becomes a donation to Lake Superior State – and never reaches her pocket.
This practice is going on all over the state of Michigan; kids and their parents often don’t even know that is happening. The Muskegon Community Foundation struggles mightily with their scholarships beings converted into displaced institutional donations to the university, instead of real scholarships to the student. In addition, student’s who are expected to go out and seek private scholarships, depending on the displacement level as determined by the individual university – have absolutely no incentive to do so – since the money will never make it into their student account.
Since Building a Better World Scholarship has attained 501 c-3 non profit status, we are able to bypass this system and write the check directly to Kennedy. The $2000 limit is not surpassed and she keeps all of her well deserved scholarship moneys. While that helps our Scholarship Award Winners, it does nothing for hundreds who don’t even realize that the practice is happening.
first year that I was introduced to owner and president Corey Leonard, Big Signs wasn’t so big; it was located up above Lakeside overlooking Muskegon Lake, in the basement of a residence. Back then Big Signs, was a handful of computers with three hard working graphic design artists, making a start in the sign world. And still, Corey donated to Building A Better World. Today, WOW! Big Signs is a nation wide monster in the signage industry. Centered in Grand Haven, featuring two 50,000 square feet production facilities and countless manufacturing partners, dozens of artists and designers with high tech skills, and state of the art technological equipment, Big Signs covers the entire USA. 
relationship. If you haven’t gone to the Hearthstone lately, stop by and dine at their lovely outdoor terrace. Sheltered with flower and vine, and serenaded by a pleasant fountain, the food – a great place for soup (always soup) and sandwich or something a little more elegant and just as tasty – is a wonderful pairing with Michigan’s sunny summer weather.
expect. Muskegon is all I had ever really known. I was blind to true diversity, but the second I got into the city, my eyes began to squint open. I finally understood why America is nicknamed “the melting pot.” I looked in one direction and saw people of every race, ethnicity, and nationality that exists. I looked in another and saw churches for every religion, and I looked around again and saw members of the LGBTQ community being open and proud of who they are, which was unlike anything I had ever seen back home. It was shocking, but it was refreshing. It was amazing to see all of these different cultures not only coinciding, but coexisting. Witnessing all of these people from different backgrounds and different parts of the world accepting each other and feeding off of the same energy opened my mind to the beauty of globalization. …
going to travel the world in order to research and understand foreign cultures and I plan on creating my own online podcast to document and inform people of my findings. My goal is to make the world aware of the lifestyles of other cultures while also becoming a more globally aware individual myself. I want to help people understand the importance of global awareness. I want to help people living in small towns like ours understand what diversity really is and how it strengthens the world we live in.”
