By Jon Schuppe
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
HARLEM — When the Harlem YMCA of Greater New York started gearing up for its 40th annual fundraising gala, it challenged itself to do something special.
Instead of giving away 18 scholarships to college-bound children, the Y raised its goal to 40 scholarships. Then it began hitting up corporate donors for extra money — not an easy task during a global recession.
“That’s a big jump,” said Tiffeny Forrest, executive director of the Harlem YMCA. “We really wanted to bring home what the Y is all about.”
The results speak for themselves.
At this Thursday night’s event at the Marriot Marquis in Midtown, the organization will announce the recipients of 52 scholarships, most of them worth $2,500 each.
The Y has also surpassed its ambitious goal of raising $600,000 for its programming, which reaches thousands of adults and children in Harlem and Washington Heights, and ranges from swim lessons to literacy classes.
“The donors dug deeper,” Forrest said. “And we’re very, very pleased that corporations still see us as viable resource in helping them do community work.”
The gala, called the National Salute to Black Achievers in Industry, began in 1971, when the Harlem YMCA decided to showcase black corporate leaders. As the diversity of corporate America has grown, the mission has expanded to encouraging children to go to college and become professionals.
As part of the program, black corporate leaders become mentors to local kids. The Y takes high school juniors on a tour of historically black colleges. And there are the scholarships, which go toward paying students’ tuition and pair the recipients with corporations that can provide them internships. The scholarships include a $5,000 Youth Achiever of the Year award, which this year will go to Danielle LaHee, a senior at the High School for Math, Science and Engineering.
The gala will also honor three corporations that have participated in each of the 40 years: Citibank, Con Edison and JPMorgan Chase. Gwendolyn B. Lee, national president of The Links Inc., a national volunteering organization, will receive the Dr. Leo B. Marsh Memorial Award, named after the gala’s late founder. Essence magazine will get the Deloitte Corporate Community Award. Former Tennessee Rep. Harold Ford, who recently decided not to run for a U.S. Senate seat in New York, will be the keynote speaker.
Many of the children who have benefitted from the Harlem YMCA’s scholarships have gone on to jobs in corporate America, Forrest noted.
“That’s what really we’re trying to achieve here,” she said. “To have corporate and community worlds come together."
