KALAMAZOO – Howard Dean, a onetime front-running presidential candidate who some credit with sowing the grassroots political seeds that sprouted into the 2008 election of Barack Obama, will keynote the KVCC Foundation’s fifth annual Opportunities for Education fund-raiser May 20.

The banquet, designed to raise scholarship dollars and underwritten by National City Bank, will begin at 6 p.m. at the Radisson Plaza Hotel and Suites in downtown Kalamazoo.

Dean, a physician advocate of health-care reform, parlayed a dozen years as the governor of Vermont from 1991 to 2003 into the early lead for the Democratic Party�??s presidential nomination in 2004 that eventually went to Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.

One of the fruits of his candidacy, which sought the support of America�??s younger population through the Internet, was to be appointed the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, a post that he held for four years beginning in 2005.

The KVCC Foundation was formed in 1980 and has accumulated $7 million in assets. Its mission is to enhance educational opportunities and the learning environment at the college by supporting the academic, literary and scientific activities of KVCC students and faculty. Its assists the college�??s Honors Program, minority enrollees and non-traditional students through scholarships and awards grants that promote innovative approaches to learning.

�??Because KVCC�??s tuition is among the lowest of the state�??s 28 community colleges and fees are practically non-existent,�?� said Steve Doherty, executive director of the KVCC Foundation, �??scholarship dollars take students a very, very long way toward their goals. We want to help even more in the coming years, now that state and federal sources of scholarships are either drying up or are in jeopardy because of budget cuts.�?�

In a typical semester, the foundation is able to assist about 250 students, with scholarship and grant assistance averaging around $350,000 an academic year for tuition, fees, books and supplies, as well as for the child-care and transportation costs that students face in pursuing a degree or a new career.

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