M&T Bank Executive Vice President Brian E Hickey and Regional President Daniel J. Burns announced a $100,000 gift to the Monroe Community College Foundation during the 20th annual Salute to Excellence dinner, held last Thursday evening at the Rochester Riverside Convention Center. The gift will establish the M&T Bank Presidential Scholarship for Academic Excellence program at MCC, providing full scholarships to academically gifted high school students.
“MCC and M&T Bank make great partners and have followed parallel paths in meeting the educational and banking needs of our community,” said Hickey. “For sure, we and our business clients would not have been successful were it not for such an outstanding educational institution and job resource like MCC. I know MCC has great plans for the future. And I can tell you tonight that M&T Bank also has plans for our continued work with MCC and the MCC Foundation.”
The gift is M&T Bank’s largest to the MCC Foundation to date. It will be paid in $20,000 installments over the next five years. Over the past 20 years, M&T Bank has given nearly $400,000 to support the success of MCC students, the college and its foundation.
“We review hundreds of (charitable grant) applications each year,” said Burns, who sits on the M&T Bank Charitable Foundation’s selection committee and is an executive committee member and director of the MCC Foundation Board. “We can’t support them all, but we generally try to support education and we’ve always looked for opportunities to build on our relationship with the MCC Foundation.”
“M&T Bank is among the most forward-thinking philanthropists in our region,” said MCC President Anne M. Kress. “The bank’s announcement represents a significant step forward in strengthening the college’s ability to attract top-tier students. The long-term benefit to local employers, other local colleges and universities, and the entire Rochester community is abundantly clear: talent raised and educated here will stay here. We are grateful to M&T Bank for their help in opening doors of educational opportunity for young people.”
“For the past 20 years, M&T Bank’s philanthropic leadership and commitment to public higher education at MCC have made a tremendous difference for MCC students,” said MCC Foundation Executive Director Diane L. Shoger. “The M&T Bank Presidential Scholarship for Academic Excellence builds on the success of MCC’s current scholarship initiatives recognizing academic achievement and offering more substantial awards to students who have demonstrated the highest degree of academic preparation, accomplishment and promise.”
In addition to providing numerous student scholarships, M&T Bank’s philanthropic leadership is exemplified through its support of the MCC Foundation’s recent capital initiatives, resulting in increased learning opportunities for inner-city youths through the M&T Scholars program and improved sports and recreational opportunities for MCC students by way of the PAC Center. Additionally, the M&T Bank Charitable Foundation’s underwriting of special events, including the MCC Foundation’s Gold Star Gala, has assisted many academically promising, yet financially disadvantaged, students further their education at MCC.
Hickey and Burns accepted the Salute to Excellence award on behalf of M&T Bank. They were among the six M&T Bank representatives, present at the award dinner, to have consecutively served on the MCC Foundation Board of Directors for the past 20 years. Former and current M&T Bank representatives who have served on the MCC Foundation Board also include Carlos Carballada, Bill Sentiff, Fred Kulikowski and John Bartolotta.
An honored Rochester tradition since 1989, the Salute to Excellence award recognizes an individual or corporation’s philanthropic leadership and commitment to public higher education and the greater Rochester community. Past recipients of the Salute to Excellence award include Pamela A. and Arunas A. Chesonis, the Louis S. and Molly B. Wolk Foundation, Anne Mulcahy, John L. DiMarco and Bausch & Lomb. Funds raised at the annual dinner support student scholarships, faculty grants and educational innovation at MCC.
Rosanna Condello
College and Community Relations
11/23/2009 |