To the Editor:
Every year, in June, the Martha’s Vineyard Peace Council gives a small scholarship to a couple of graduating seniors. The applications of the recipients have been accompanied by heartfelt, written statements affirming the values of peace and peacemaking in their young lives and in their aspirations for the future. This year, we made an essay one of the requirements, with the expectation that we would collect them into a booklet.
The applications are now coming in, and what they have to say is moving indeed. To our dismay, most of them will go unrewarded because the Peace Council has only enough in its checking account for two meager $500 scholarships. Who knew that advocating for peace was such a competitive field?
Some years ago, a donor placed $5,000 seed money for a Peace Scholarship endowment into a fund which is now held by the Permanent Endowment for Martha’s Vineyard. For the earnings of this endowment to accrue to the annual scholarship, it must grow to $20,000. We are 25 percent there.
Tax-deductible donations can be made to the Permanent Endowment for the Peace Scholarship Fund, either as a pass-through for the present year’s scholarships, or to grow the endowment toward and past that $20,000 threshold, or in some measure to each purpose.
The Peace Council has been active on the Island for more than 50 years fostering nonviolence, justice, and peace in our hearts, within the Peace Council, in our Island community, in our nation, and throughout the world. It encourages people to pool their diverse experiences and ideas for the development and delivery of initiatives that put our shared commitment to peace into effective action.
Bruce Nevin
Treasurer
Martha’s Vineyard Peace Council