Presidential Hope Fund helps get students ‘across the finish line’

By Grace Bertrand

Providing students with a financial safety net, Rider’s Presidential Hope Fund has allocated an estimated $200,000 to nearly 60 students since its launch in late October, according to Senior Vice President and Chief of Staff for Student Experience Mary-Alice Ozechoski, who oversees the program. 

The initiative was launched as a way to supply students in need with emergency funds to continue going to college, specifically looking to help first-generation students or students that come from single-parent households. 

The program itself has raised nearly $2.4 million from contributors across all sectors of leadership on campus, Ozechoski said, with every member of the Board of Trustees, Senior Leadership Team, The Norm Brodsky College of Business and the alumni board giving money directly from their pockets.

Ozechoski noted that hearing stories of struggling students are what inspired many donors to give, recalling a time when she had to personally step in and pay a single-parent student’s electricity bill with a university credit card because their only other option was to drop out of college. 

“I’ve had people tell me that students are sleeping in their cars, or people are out of meals or students are worried about a situation at home,” Ozechoski said. “When you talk about it with donors, everybody remembers a time in college when they had a hard time.” 

Calling the financial issues students are facing “universal,” Ozechoski attributed it to the “complexity of who’s coming to college now,” with a bigger majority of students coming from blended families and backgrounds than before. 

One student who was aided by the Hope Fund is sophomore acting for film, television and theatre major Mickey Durkin, who goes by they/them pronouns. They recently applied to receive financial support in light of their mother passing away from cancer over winter break. 

“After my mother passed away, I was not only navigating grief, but also immediately jumping back into classes, moving to New Jersey in my off-campus house and battling with the financial strain that came from missing weeks of work while caring for her at the end of her life,” Durkin said. 

The support they received from the Hope Fund eased that burden, and according to Durkin, allowed them to properly grieve and continue their education “without the constant weight of financial panic.” 

Durkin said they applied for the Hope Fund once, but were granted a scholarship three times the amount of money requested, highlighting Dean of Students Christine Mehlhorn as an important person who met with them personally to prompt them to apply. 

They continued, “Because of this fund, I was able to travel home to be with my family when it mattered most and maintain my housing during a time when even the most minor costs felt overwhelming and uncertain. That security made an enormous difference.” 

Paying it forward 

As a first-generation college student himself, Rider President John Loyack originally launched the Hope Fund with Ozechoski at their previous employer, Alvernia University. After they noticed the positive impact the program had on students at all levels across the community, from undergraduates to graduates and adult learners, the pair repeated the same formula at Rider. 

Loyack was the first to make a donation to the program, pledging $150,000 over the next three years, causing a ripple effect of other donations to come in from university leaders.

Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs Kelly Bidle highlighted the significance of the funds in getting students “across the finish line” in just a short period of time.

She said, “These funds make an important difference in the lives of those students who just need a little help to get them through a myriad of financial challenges that would otherwise make it difficult for them to continue with their studies at Rider.” 

For Ozechoski, though, the barrier that students experience is not if a program like the Hope Fund exists, but the embarrassment that may come with sharing their stories. 

Consequently, it was a priority for Ozechoski to make the application process as confidential as possible, with only three to four people reviewing the applications. 

Students can fill out the applications online, which are continuously open, and they then go through the Dean of Students Office before being sent to the Financial Aid Office, where a “professional judgment” is done to see if the students are eligible for more aid. If not, the application is then looked at by the    decision-making team, who determines if the Hope Fund can help the student and whether the aid will be partial or whole. 

Every student helped by the Hope Fund is also encouraged to share their stories and give what they can back into the program after they graduate, whether it be $20 or $200. 

“It’s hard to have a sight line to give back when you have a payback [for student loans]. But, this is an easy, low-budget thing for people to do, and really, people can give at all levels,” Ozechoski said. 

Though she is not a first-generation student herself, Ozechoski said she understood the challenges that come with paying for school on your own, as she was faced with that task after her dad refused to pay for her college because he did not believe in women getting a higher education. 

Her hope is that she can help students who are facing similar struggles get the education that she was able to receive and she believes the only way to do that is if the community gives back to each other. 

Ozechoski said, “I think as a community, we want to be a place that says we can help you. This isn’t your fault, you know? Things happen in life and we should be able to support it.”