10-19-15

Photo Front row (L to R): NGTC Acting President Dr. Mark Ivester, Susan Baker, NGTC Board of Trustees Chair Dr. Michael Callahan, Trustee Rachel Morrison. Back row (L to R): NGTC Trustees Stewart Sayer, Hilda Burke, Janney Sanders, NGTC Advancement Director Cynthia Brown, Trustees Bobbie Lerdon, and Whit Diggs.

Photo Front row (L to R): NGTC Acting President Dr. Mark Ivester, Susan Baker, NGTC Board of Trustees Chair Dr. Michael Callahan, Trustee Rachel Morrison. Back row (L to R): NGTC Trustees Stewart Sayer, Hilda Burke, Janney Sanders, NGTC Advancement Director Cynthia Brown, Trustees Bobbie Lerdon, and Whit Diggs.

(Clarkesville)- Trustees attending the October meeting of the North Georgia Technical College Foundation Board were pleasantly surprised by a visit from Susan Baker of Habersham EMC. Baker was on hand to present the Foundation with a $2,500 check from the Habersham EMC Foundation’s Operation Round-up Program. The donation will be used to fund lending library scholarships for NGTC students with documented financial need.

Realizing that many students were unable to complete their programs because they could not afford the books and materials they needed, the NGTC Foundation opened the Lending Library in 2011. The program allows students with documented financial need to check out required textbooks, use them throughout the term, and return them when the semester ends. Since opening, the Lending Library has provided assistance with books to 466 students at a cost of $81,595.

Baker said she wanted to say “thank you from one foundation to another – it’s great that NGTC has a lending library, and the EMC Foundation is happy to help the NGTC Foundation help students!” She informed the board that Operation Round-up funds come from Habersham EMC’s 34,000 members. “EMC members who opt in to have their monthly bills “rounded up” to the next dollar amount contribute an average of $6 per year,” said Baker, “and since its inception in 2002, the program has awarded approximately $1.5 million in the communities it serves.”

“We are so excited to have Habersham EMC as a supporter of our Foundation,” said NGTC Advancement Director Cynthia Brown. “Without the required textbooks and class materials, students are not able to complete their education. This donation will help tremendously in assisting the Foundation to help keep students in school so they can graduate and go to work.”

If you would like more information about the NGTC Foundation, or if you would like to make a tax deductible contribution, call 706-654-7714 or email at cbrown@northgatech.edu.

For more information on the Habersham EMC Operation Roundup Program, visit http://www.habershamemc.com/node/63.