Pres­i­dent Amar­jeet Kocher of the Ro­tary Club of St. Au­gus­tine has pledged $90,000 to The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St. Au­gus­tine Cam­pus. The do­na­tion will be dis­trib­uted over a three-year pe­ri­od, with $30,000 al­lo­cat­ed an­nu­al­ly to fund schol­ar­ships and bur­saries for un­der­grad­u­ate stu­dents in need.

The cheque han­dover took place on the uni­ver­si­ty cam­pus. Kocher pre­sent­ed the cheque to Deputy Prin­ci­pal Pro­fes­sor Derek Chadee. Man­ag­er of Fi­nan­cial Ad­vi­so­ry Ser­vices Kristy Smith al­so at­tend­ed the pre­sen­ta­tion.

The uni­ver­si­ty will dis­trib­ute the funds through the Cam­pus Com­mit­tee for Un­der­grad­u­ate Awards. The Com­mit­tee will be re­spon­si­ble for man­ag­ing the fair and trans­par­ent al­lo­ca­tion of the schol­ar­ships and bur­saries.

Kocher said the Club has sup­port­ed stu­dents for decades. He said both the Club and in­di­vid­ual mem­bers have con­sis­tent­ly con­tributed to ed­u­ca­tion. He said the new pledge re­flects the Club’s com­mit­ment to help­ing stu­dents ac­cess uni­ver­si­ty re­gard­less of their fi­nan­cial sit­u­a­tion.

Deputy Prin­ci­pal Chadee ex­pressed ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the do­na­tion. He said the con­tri­bu­tion would help stu­dents over­come fi­nan­cial chal­lenges and reach their aca­d­e­m­ic goals.

The Ro­tary Club of St. Au­gus­tine has a long-stand­ing re­la­tion­ship with the uni­ver­si­ty. The Club said its con­tri­bu­tions are part of its con­tin­ued ef­fort to pro­mote the Ro­tary mot­to, “Ser­vice Above Self.”

The uni­ver­si­ty said the funds will sup­port stu­dents who demon­strate fi­nan­cial need and aca­d­e­m­ic po­ten­tial. The in­sti­tu­tion al­so not­ed the im­por­tance of part­ner­ships with civic or­gan­i­sa­tions in strength­en­ing ac­cess to ed­u­ca­tion.

The Ro­tary Club said it re­mains com­mit­ted to help­ing de­vel­op the next gen­er­a­tion of lead­ers through ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties. The Club said its con­tri­bu­tions are aimed at cre­at­ing a last­ing im­pact in the com­mu­ni­ty.