Meeting Street Scholarship Fund to grant 177 SC scholarships

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The Meeting Street Scholarship Fund, aimed at helping high-achieving students pay for college, is expecting to offer scholarships to a minimum of 104 students in Charleston County and 177 throughout the state.

Rising college freshmen from Charleston County and Pee Dee regions who meet the criteria can still apply to receive the scholarship for the 2022-2023 school year, according to a news release. 

In its inaugural year, the Meeting Street Scholarship Fund awarded scholarships to 94 academically successful Charleston County students, with $3 million in total scholarships awarded. Now in its second year with the support of the Darla Moore Foundation, students in the Pee Dee region are also eligible for the scholarship. With this partnership, Meeting Street Scholarship Fund hopes to double the number of scholarship recipients for the upcoming school year. 

With the goal of bridging the financial gap between college tuition and what families can afford, there is no limit on the number of students who receive a Meeting Street Scholarship. Every qualified recipient will receive up to $10,000 annually for their higher education, the news release said. This includes rising college freshmen and students who became eligible for the scholarship while in college.

"The Meeting Street Scholarship is about optimism and expanding opportunity for our community," Ben Navarro, founder of the program, said in the release. "I am proud to support this class of students who have achieved so much, and can't wait to see what the future holds for each of them.  Our hope is to inspire thousands more students to work hard and take advantage of this opportunity." 

“This is an exceptional group of students, and we hope this scholarship will help them pursue their dreams and reduce the financial burden typically associated with higher education,” Darla Moore, who grew up in the Pee Dee town of Lake City, said in the release. “It’s our goal to improve the lives of Pee Dee residents, and higher education plays a critical role in that aspiration.”

Each Charleston County student who qualifies for the Meeting Street Scholarship must:

• Graduate from an eligible Charleston County public high school or public charter high school 
• Qualify for the federal Pell Grant based upon FAFSA completion
• Earn an SC LIFE or Palmetto Fellows Scholarship, meeting two of the following three requirements: earn at least a 3.0 GPA in high school; score at least 1100 on the SAT or 24 on the ACT; and rank in the top 30% of their graduating class.
• Attend an eligible South Carolina college or university with a six-year graduation rate of 50% or higher

Applications will open for the 2023-2024 school year later this fall.

Founded in 2019 by Ben and Kelly Navarro, the Meeting Street Scholarship Fund is a program of the Beemok Family Foundation. The scholarship is intended to create a pathway for thousands of hard-working public high school graduates to attend a South Carolina college by helping families with limited means pay for college with up to $10,000 in annual scholarship awards for a total of up to $40,000 over four years.

The Darla Moore Foundation was founded in 2010 by Lake City philanthropist and financier Darla Moore, with the mission of enhancing the lives of the residents of the Pee Dee region and all of South Carolina.