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Your Impact

Your Impact

Scholarship Recipients – In their words

Your gift has a direct impact on student success, helping to remove barriers and ensure everyone has access to an excellent education. Listen to three scholarship recipients tell their stories.

Erykka Rocha, a business administration major, is a recipient of the StandOutTruck.com Celeste Berger Annual Scholarship. Hear her describe how your gift lifts a weight from her shoulders.

Xinyan Jiang, a liberal arts major,  is a recipient of the Vincent and Patricia McElroy Memorial Award. In this video, she describes how your gift is supporting her as she transfers to Amherst College to continue her studies.

Jalen Cortes, a physics major, is a recipient of the Franklin Morris O’Connell Scholarship. Listen as he explains how your gifts will help him study the stars.

Your Gift. Your Choice.

The Holyoke Community College Foundation launched its first-ever microphilanthropy campaign, “Your Gift, Your Choice,” featuring nine giving opportunities across campus that enabled donors to make small, manageable gifts that collectively generate a significant impact. The campaign successfully concluded by the end of the year. In total, 172 donors collectively gave $23,437 to fund the nine projects with gifts ranging from $10 to $3,000.

Stage Monitors & Amplifiers

Listen to students in the music program use the new stage monitors and amplifiers during the mid-semester ensemble.

Data Collection Devices

Students in the biology program are using the data collection devices for a class project to measure fluctuations in temperature.

Charging Stations

With the new mobile power units, students in the library are now able to charge their devices from anywhere.

Smartpens

With the addition of 20 new Echo Smartpens, students with disabilities are already using your gifts to help them overcome barriers and fund success in the classroom.

Canine Vet Trainer

Students in the vet tech program are learning to draw blood and give exams to the new simulated canine vet trainer Pinta, named after a generous donor’s pet.

Transformational Impact

Thanks to donor support, the college was able to renovate the second floor of the library to create a more open, inclusive, and welcoming space for students.

Library Renovation

Support from our donors made a renovation of the second floor of the library possible, creating a more open, inclusive, and welcoming space for students.

Frost/Lynch scholarship

Inspired by their shared admiration for, President George Frost and Ellen Lynch, members of the Holyoke Junior College Reunion Planning Committee decided to create a gift to honor their former mentors.

Scholarship Reception

At the 2024 scholarship reception, Laura Freeman, manager of donor relations explained how the new Scholarship Resource Center is changing the culture of philanthropy on campus.

Stories of Impact

Read the ways in which your support keeps the spirit of generosity, perseverance, and community alive at Holyoke Community College.

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Acts of Kindness

Nursing student and scholarship recipient Madeline Gray spoke on behalf of students at the HCC Foundation's May 9 scholarship reception.
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More than just a classmate

The legacy of Mark Giannini ’19 lives on
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Partners in Education

William and Rosalind Brezinski have been passionate supporters of HCC for more than two decades
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Open Resource

HCC celebrated the grand opening of its Scholarship Resource Center, a new support service aimed at helping students apply for HCC scholarships.
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Strength, Success, Bravery, and Joy

Strength, Success, Bravery, and Joy

A series of colorful campus murals, depicting everything from towering bomba dancers to historical icons, has brought a sense of cultural pride to campus.
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The Connection

Catch up on the latest stories in the most recent edition of The Connection

Grant-Funded Opportunities

Grant funding fuels innovation and collaboration, and we are grateful to our business and community partners for their belief in the HCC mission. More than $8 million in Federal, State, and private grant dollars were awarded to Holyoke Community College during the 2023-24 fiscal year. A few highlights include:
 
  • $600,000 to expand its Itsy Bitsy Child Watch program to serve more student-parents.
  • $832,000 to HCC to help train workers for clean energy sector jobs.
  • a grant to support the expansion of public access to wifi at the Picknelly Adult and Family Education Center.
  • $1.5M for HCC to lead a consortium of community colleges working with school districts in Western Mass to train and employ paraeducators.
  • $375,000 to upgrade the simulation laboratory for nursing training.

Other highlights from 2023-2024:

  • On Thursday, May 16, HCC celebrated its largest class ever of TRIO Program graduates – 106.
  • Business West magazine has selected Shannon Glenn, academic counselor of HCC’s Gateway to College program as a 40 Under Forty award winner for 2024. At Gateway, an alternative high school program, Glenn, 39, helps students at risk of dropping out.
  • The Itsy Bitsy Closet, a family-friendly resource room stocked with donated children’s clothing, jackets, shoes, books, and more, with all of the items available for free to HCC student-parents.
  • Julissa Colón ’13, director of El Centro, was featured on MassLive on Sept. 17 as part of a series of Hispanic Heritage Month profiles.
  • Holyoke Community College was selected as the Best College or University in the Pioneer Valley in the Springfield Republican / MassLive Reader Raves poll for 2024. This was the second year in a row that Republican and MassLive readers voted HCC as their number one choice.
  • Laurel Carpenter, associate professor of environmental science, was awarded a national fellowship focusing on STEM education at community colleges.