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The Indian Women’s Pocahontas Club provides higher education scholarships to Cherokee students each academic year, and its 2021 scholarship application period is now open for the fall semester.
The IWPC awards 10 students $600 scholarships each year to aid in tuition, books or whatever the need may be.
“There’s a lot of things our Native students need,” said Celeste Tillery, IWPC vice president. “It bridges that gap. They can get their scholarships for books and tuition. We don’t send it to the school because they’ll put it in their account. So we just send it directly to them.”
The IWPC scholarship was founded in 1988 with a committee that began collecting nickels and dimes at each meeting to raise funds, according to the “Pocahontas Spirit - The First 100 years” book. The organization itself was established in 1899 and now consists of more than 200 members.
Over the years, the scholarship amounts and criteria have changed to be exclusive to Cherokee students and unlimited in what the students study and their choices of school.
According to the book, the first scholarship was awarded to Linda Phillips in the amount of $100.
Scholarships are funded through yearly fundraisers and an endowment with the Communities Foundation of Oklahoma. The IWPC has nearly reached its $100,000 goal to continue providing scholarships each year, though the pandemic slowed its investments in 2020.
“Instead of letting colleges run it, we would be doing our own money and choosing our own people because the colleges were putting the money all into a big group,” said Ollie Star, IWPC executive director. “So it gives us more control over our own money. It gives us more flexibility to let the children go to different colleges in different states.”
To apply, a student must be attending an accredited higher education institution, be a Cherokee Nation citizen, be enrolled full-time, have a current grade point average of 2.5 or higher and provide an official copy of high school or college transcript or GED scores.
The IWPC is also involved in endowed scholarships with other organizations and higher education institutions such as the Cherokee Nation Foundation and Rogers State University and select students for these scholarships as well.
CN citizen Cloe Dennis is a Foreman Faulkner scholarship recipient and a freshman at RSU who plans to go into the nursing field.
“It helps me with me with tuition and reducing debt after college and thankfully to the Indian Women’s Pocahontas Club I’m able to achieve my goals and hope to continue to achieve them throughout the rest of college,” Dennis said.
CN citizen Jesse Rader is also a Foreman Faulkner recipient studying environmental conservation at RSU.
“The main benefit of the scholarship is the monetary benefit of it,” Rader said. “We don’t necessarily have to worry about a student loan anymore and it also takes a burden off of us where we don’t necessarily have to work more hours to pay for college. It’s very beneficial to us to spend more time on our studies compared to worrying about paying for college.”
The IWCP scholarship applications are open through June 30 for the fall semester.
Applications and information can be found at indianwpc.org.