Tuesday, September 30, 2003 in Omaha World-Herald
By Judith Nygren
John Walton has helped thousands of low-income children attend private schools, and now he is coming to Omaha to see how his scholarship program is working here.
Walton will visit All Saints Catholic School and St. Paul Lutheran School on Thursday morning, meeting some of the students and parents who receive tuition assistance through the Children’s Scholarship Fund of Omaha. He also will attend a board meeting for the fund.
Walton, director of Wal-Mart Stores, and Theodore Forstmann, an investor, pledged $ 100million of their own money in the late 1990s to launch the national Children’s Scholarship Fund.
It has become the largest private education initiative in the United States and has been named by Worth magazine as one of the Top 100 charities in the country. Nearly 45 local initiatives have grown out of the national program.
The Omaha program has awarded an average of $1,100 to 1,600 Nebraska children choosing to attend a private or parochial school. Families must pay at least $ 500 toward tuition.
The Omaha fund this year expects to collect more $ 1 million in contributions, far more than the $ 200,000 it raised in 1998, its first year. Additional money for the national program could boost the scholarship pool to $ 1.7 million for the 2004-05 school year.