With $11.17 million in grants and tax credits in place, Elizabethtown Community and Technical College will kick off a fundraising effort Friday to make its Family Scholar House a reality.
ECTC President and CEO Juston Pate said the project will develop a housing complex on college property to accommodate 48 families. It will be available to help adult students interested in pursuing an education but unable to attend for lack of affordable housing or transportation issues.
He told the Hardin County Chamber of Commerce luncheon he sees it as a way to impact generational poverty.
“This is the most powerful project, I’ve ever worked on,” Pate said Wednesday. Family Scholar House is part of a holistic approach for qualifying parents enrolled in the college, Pate said. Originally described as a $12.6 million project, Pate said the community will be challenged to meet its share of the cost. Part of the local fundraising is in place, he said. The fundraising campaign announcement begins at noon Friday in the Morrison Gallery, which is in the center of the James S. Owen Building on the ECTC campus off College Street Road.
It will be followed by food distribution for Family Scholar House participants at 12:30 p.m. Home for Hope committee members and ECTC Foundation board members will handle the distribution, a news release from the college said.
Cathe Dykstra, chief possibility officer and president and CEO of the Family Scholar House, will be part of Friday’s program.
