The Marion County School District announced today that it has received a non-restricted gift of $3.5 million from billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott. The district has partnered with the Pine Belt Foundation to form the Marion County School District Educational Fund, and scholarships funded from the grant will provide free tuition for many Marion County students to attend Pearl River Community College.
The Pine Belt Foundation will oversee the fiscal management of the fund and distribution of its assets. The Foundation Fund will award scholarships to students graduating from West Marion and East Marion high schools.
Applications for the scholarships will be available at the end of November. Details can be found at www.marionk12.org/MCSDEducationalFoundationScholarship.
In this most recent donation, Scott, who is the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, is giving away $1.9 billion to 343 organizations across the country.
Students from both East Marion and West Marion high schools were present at the press conference, and it was live-streamed to all of the classes at the high schools, as well as to Marion County students in attendance at PRCC.
