Toad Suck committee to provide $51,000 to local students

Though the 2009 Toad Suck Daze is still months away, the Toad Suck committee is already busy making preparations for the family-friendly festival.

From booking the major music acts to finding the best food vendors to offer all things fried, the committee members have their hands full; however, the first order of business has to do with the reason for holding the festival in the first place promoting education.

According to Mary Margaret Satterfield of the Conway Area Chamber of Commerce, it is now time for those interested in receiving a Toad Suck scholarships to apply.

"The whole purpose of the festival is to provide these scholarships and for everybody on the committee, one of their main reasons for being a part of the festival is to help with the scholarship fund and really raise the money for our local students," Satterfield said Thursday.

This year, Satterfield said the committee will award $51,000, which comes from the profits of past festivals and official merchandise, for Faulkner County students to attend one of the three colleges in Conway or a local vocational or technical school.

"Conway is such an education community with the colleges and the university that giving scholarships is just a good fit and we really love providing them," Satterfield said.

Another good fit for the Toad Suck Daze scholarship program is integrating community service into the criteria for hopeful applicants.

Satterfield said those who apply for the scholarship must provide an accounting of consistent volunteer work with a nonprofit organization. Those who receive scholarships are required to obtain several hours of community service, with 10 hours related to the 2009 Toad Suck Daze, she added.

"The service hours are really to instill in these usually high school seniors that get the scholarships that it's good to become involved in their community," Satterfield said. "They do service in other areas of the community and then they do Toad Suck hours so they can become aware of the festival and see how the community comes together to help them."

Satterfield added she hopes through participating in the service side of the scholarship program, the students will earn more than just money to go to college.

"Hopefully this will help them because when they're older, they will appreciate community service and they will look back and know they were able to go to college because of their own service and because of the community they lived in," Satterfield said.

Other criteria applicants must meet to be eligible include being a high school graduating senior in Faulkner County, having a GPA of 2.5 of higher, applying for admission to the 2009 fall term at the University of Central Arkansas, Hendrix College, Central Baptist College or an area vocational/technical school and demonstrating financial need.

According to Satterfield, since the committee first began giving scholarships, it has awarded more than $583,000 to 182 Faulkner County students.

However, as the festival grows and changes each year, so does the scholarship program. In addition to contributing to the Faulkner County Single Parent Scholarship Fund, the scholarship program also gives to Toad Suck Daze endowments established at the three local colleges to ensure funds are available for scholarships in future years.

One recent change to this came in 2008, when the committee opened a fourth endowment option at the Community Foundation of Faulkner County with a gift of $300,000 and a pledge to contribute an additional $250,000 by 2012. A challenge was also issued to the businesses and residents Faulkner County to match that $250,000 contribution to reach a total of $1,000,000 in four years.

According to a Toad Suck Daze press release, applications are available at all Faulkner County high schools, UCA, Hendrix, CBC, the University of Arkansas Community College at Morrilton and the Conway Area Chamber of Commerce.

Applications must be turned into the college in which the student is applying by Friday, March 6.

(Staff writer Jessica Bauer can be reached by e-mail at jessica.bauer@thecabin.net or by phone at 505-1236. To comment on this and other stories in the Log Cabin, log on to www.thecabin.net. Send us your news at www.thecabin.net/submit)