Black Friday, an informal name for the Friday following Thanksgiving Day in the US, is usually thought of as a day to wreak havoc in stores. For some families with students seeking US college scholarships, however, this is a day to head to the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History for the Black Friday Scholarship Bootcamp.
The boot camp aims to help students to win college scholarships and study abroad in more than 100 countries and was first launched by author and parent Gwen Thomas in 2013. Students get to participate in practical hands-on activities along with ACT-SAT college prep, while parents learn how to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid form and clean up their credit in time in case they need to apply for loans. Students and parents will additionally get to hear the success stories of other students in the Black Friday Scholarship Bootcamp — it is a full day of learning sessions with opportunities to win prizes, money, and so on.
Founder Gwen Thomas has worked with students in Vietnam, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, South Africa, and Honduras. Below we speak to her to learn more about the bootcamp and and how it came to be.
Tell us a bit more about yourself, and the sudden change in career.
I am a divorced mother of one. Before starting this non-profit, I started and ran an entertainment marketing business in Chicago and later in Detroit for nearly 20 years until 2012.
I was then able to help my own son to win US$500,000 in college scholarships and the choice to study abroad in 39 countries. He graduated from Morehouse College in Atlanta — a privately historically black men’s college — and also graduated from Johns Hopkins University, a private research university in Baltimore. He’s also won many awards for community service and academic recognition. I then decided to do some research surrounding college readiness.
What made you start the Black Friday Scholarship Bootcamp?
In 2014, I received a phone call from the Charles Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit, my hometown. They were looking for me because they recognised the “Scholarship Mother” who did a small workshop at the museum and several other places in the city.
When people learned of my son’s success, I would get calls from friends asking if I would help their children. From then on, I created a pilot programme to define who my audience and demographics was. With encouragement from my son who was living in DC at the time, I moved to Washington to learn more about working with the Department of Education there.
A month before Thanksgiving, the museum in Detroit called and asked if I could do a seminar sometime soon, and I suggested Thanksgiving weekend but they were reluctant as it is a big shopping day and they weren’t sure if people would attend. I had the idea to call the event the Black Friday Scholarship Bootcamp.
To make it relevant, I created a mantra: “While Americans are shopping for Christmas gifts, our students will be shopping for college scholarships.” When I held the programme in Detroit, there were 200 people there. This event grew from one auditorium in the museum, to the entire museum in Chicago with 340 people in attendance.
How do you help students with college scholarships abroad? Walk us through the process.
Last year, we created the Michigan STEM International Exploration Tour where we raised money through corporations and foundations for our South Africa trip. Every two years, our goal is to provide 11th and 12th graders and orientation studying abroad aimed at students who expressed an interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, and inspire them to go to these industries.
This programme will improve STEM literacy, global exposure, and promote academic and social growth. Students also have the chance to engage in hands-on workshops and learn the many career paths available with an education in STEM, and the plan was to head to South Africa this year but COVID-19 got in the way.
We also help students study abroad by finding scholarships that will pay for their expenses. We encourage these young students to gain global knowledge, and teach urban students about the opportunities they have.
We also educate students about the IIE passport — a search engine for all the study abroad programmes, and we usually have an international guest who talks about options. The main thing is we educate students on the navigation process of passports, paperwork, and so on.
I also serve as an agent for Eastern Michigan University (EMU) for students who want to come to the US, but that also has slowed down due to COVID 19. EMU will partner with Ann Arbor-based Global Educational Excellence to support a centre for international recruitment in Jordan which will be the main headquarters for a diverse recruitment team working with students and parents throughout the Middle East and North Africa region.
Do you expect a big turnout this year for the Black Friday Scholarship Bootcamp?
We want to be consistent, so we are holding our event virtually to practise safety measures with regards to COVID-19 and have opened it up globally to reach more students since we are not allowed to travel. We are also currently partnering with several organisations so we feel good about involvement. We have some great speakers lined up, and many incentives to motivate students to participate.
You’ve worked with kids in several different countries, can you tell us more about it?
The Executive Director of the Abundant Life Foundation in Honduras heard me speak in Washington and invited me to Roatán to work with their high school students over several days. I talked to approximately 75 students about colleges in America and across the globe.
I got to teach them about the process of college admission and research for higher education and scholarships. Our final day included a session discussing how to pay for college, which included opportunities in Canada, Australia, Europe and Asia.
As part of my book tour for “The Parent’s Smart Guide to Sending your Kids to College without Going Broke,” I included stops in several different countries and partnered with EducationUSA on a virtual broadcast that reached 250 countries.
In Tegucigalpa in Honduras, I coordinated with the embassy to speak to American embassy employees with college-bound students. In Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, I talked to the America Centre at the embassy, which was open to the general public. In Trinidad and Tobago, the American embassy organised a programme with EducationUSA for me to speak to students at one of the local highschools. In Mexico, we met with an official at EducationUSA and we are currently working with African Impact and a few universities in Cape Town.
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