About
Every child is capable of success. If given the opportunity, every young person can achieve greatness. When students attend academically rigorous schools, engage in relevant educational experiences and have meaningful relationships with adults who are committed to their growth and development they can and will reach their full intellectual, professional and personal potential.
Over fifteen years ago, a small group of people with a big idea believed these things to be true and invested their time, energy and resources into establishing the Fund for Advancement of Minorities through Education to support financially disadvantaged African American youth. Initially, FAME, a non-profit organization designed to provide scholarship funds for students with financial need to attend participating independent schools, partnered with The Ellis School, Sewickley Academy, Winchester Thurston School, St. Edmund's Academy, and Shady Side Academy to provide need-based scholarships to five African American students. Today, FAME continues to partner with those five schools, as well as the newest member of the consortium, The Kiski School, to provide need-based scholarships to 66 students. We do not only provide these students with financial support but also with supplemental academic programming and tutors, leadership skill development training and character building opportunities, and the moral support and encouragement that every student needs and deserves. We are proud to say that 76 scholars have graduated from participating independent schools with FAME's assistance. All of these young people have gone onto four year colleges and universities, all graduate, and over 50% return to Pittsburgh to live and work. Right now there are FAME Alumni at Harvard Medical School, Columbia Law School, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the University of Pittsburgh's Business School, and working as financial advisors, school counselors and engineers, just to name a few.
Today, at FAME, we do not just believe these lofty statements to be true of all children, we know them to be true. We witness the truth of these declarations in the faces and in the lives of the amazingly talented, and uniquely prepared, FAME Scholars and Alumni we are privileged to serve. They achieve success each day, they have proven themselves to be exceptional despite the financial indicators that some would say suggest they wouldn't be, and they continuously strive toward the intellectual, professional and personal excellence for which they are destined.
FAME is committed to addressing issues of educational equity in the Pittsburgh region and doing what is right for a critical mass of African American youth and families in Western Pennsylvania. We are educating the leaders of tomorrow, one child at a time.
Constance F. Horton, Executive Director