Longstanding Scholarship Could Move To Cape Cod Foundation

 CHATHAM – When George and Mary Bearse decided to create a trust to administer a scholarship back in the 1960s, Chatham was a different place. Decades later, their desire to help local kids pursuing higher education is still being honored, though potentially in a slightly different way.

 Attorney William Riley said that the Bearses, who lived in a big white house on Queen Anne Road, worked with his predecessor, attorney Igo W. Toabe, to create the scholarship in 1962 with a $25,000 endowment. The scholarship was to have been run by Toabe, the chairman of the select board, “and the president of the Chatham Trust Company, which, of course, doesn’t exist anymore,” Riley told the select board May 6.

For years, the scholarship fund gave gifts of $500 to graduates of Chatham High School, until in the 1980s the gifts were increased to $1,000. The awards were made by the high school guidance department and authorized each year by the select board chair at the time. But when the Monomoy Regional School District was created, there was a staffing change in the guidance department and the process stalled occasionally, Riley said.

 “So there were some years when no scholarships were given,” he said, and then the staff person in his legal office who oversaw the scholarship retired, and the program lapsed further. When Riley reviewed the trust’s bank account, he found that it had accumulated more than $450,000.

 “So I thought that perhaps we would need some professional assistance,” he said. He was referred to the Cape Cod Foundation and learned that they administer a variety of scholarships and charitable funds totaling over $100 million. 

 “They’re an amazing organization,” he said. Riley spoke with Foundation President and CEO Kristin O’Malley who suggested that the Bearse scholarship trust be discontinued and the money be administered by the Cape Cod Foundation instead.

 “They have suggested that we should broaden the pool of recipients to include any Chatham resident graduating from any public high school,” Riley said. “She thinks that...instead of $1,000 once, they’ll be able to give $4,000 to $5,000 every year that the student is in college.” The fund would be able to support several students each year with multi-year scholarships, “rather than just a one-time gift,” he said.

 Because the trust is partly administered by the select board chair, Riley came to the board last week to gauge its interest in dissolving the trust and moving the scholarship to the Cape Cod Foundation.

 “I think this is an excellent idea,” board member Dean Nicastro said. He asked whether there was interest in expanding awards to students of any high school, including non-public ones, in Barnstable County. Riley said his first impulse was to exclude private school students, whose families presumably have the financial means to afford tuition there.

 “In the 1960s, Chatham was a really small town,” Riley said, and most of the people who ran the town were lifelong residents. “And so when the Bearses set up a scholarship, they had in mind helping those people: they weren’t rich, they weren’t wealthy. They were fisherfolk, they were shopkeepers.” For that reason, they designated their funds to be used for Chatham High School students, rather than Chatham residents attending any high school, Riley noted.

 “I’d like to stay as close [as possible] to what was the intent of the Bearse family,” board member Cory Metters said. He favored turning the fund over to the Cape Cod Foundation. “They’re going to be a great steward,” he said.

 Board member Michael Schell said he would hope that the scholarship would retain the name George and Mary Bearse Scholarship Fund.

 “I’ll make sure that’s a condition,” Riley replied. The select board took no vote but expressed its support for the plan.

 The next step, Riley said, is to ask the probate court to allow the original scholarship trust to be modified, a process known as a cy pres petition. The select board asked Riley to return and report on the outcome of that process.