Scholarship Grant Awards

Echo Heritage Association was founded in 2018.  The immediate issue was to preserve a beautiful historic St. Peter's church on the edge of town.  Several of the EHA founding leaders were from the Echo Kiwanis Club.  It was that group that started work in 2015 to clean up the church and eventually, provide $20,000 in seed money to actually start the EHA.

Later, in 2023, Echo Kiwanis sought to disband and upon doing so, offered the OktoberFest and scholarship program -- as community activities -- to EHA.  By then EHA had grown to want more community activity and the Board voted to assume responsibility for both.

The concept is simply to coordinate community  encouragement towards graduating seniors; Echo graduating seniors who are seeking further education.  This is done by gathering funds and managing those funds in support of selected students.  This particular program gets money from individual/business donations as well as proceeds from Echo's OktoberFest or, in 2025, the Summer Solstice Party.  Administrative work is completed by volunteers.  Overhead costs are less than 8%.  Students and their awards are determined by a committee during a student application process made available to the graduating seniors.