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Superintendents of the Harlan Independent School District and the Harlan County School District are encouraging Harlan County residents and former residents to look locally as they consider contributions on the National Giving Tuesday event schedule for Dec. 3.

C.D. Morton and Brent Roark rotate as president of the Harlan County Community Scholarship Fund. In doing so, they take on the responsibility of raising the funds to continue to award scholarships to students from the city and county school district.

“In recent years, we have experienced a decline in donations,” noted Morton. “We normally do not conduct our fundraising until the spring, but this year we want to start early and hopefully avoid exhausting the organization’s contingency funds.

Roark said that many of the long-standing donors have passed away or their businesses have closed.

The fund’s board of directors have appealed to previous scholarship recipients over the past two years and were somewhat successful in meeting some of the shortage of funds.

“The scholarship fund was established in 1983. It is one of if not the longest running scholarship funds in the county,” said Morton. “We want to see it survive and continue assist our local students in gaining their postsecondary education.”

While the organization is not listed with the GivingTuesday global movement, Morton and Roark said they want to encourage anyone considering making donations to consider the Harlan County Community Scholarship Fund.

Checks should be mailed to:

Harlan County Community Scholarship Fund

106 South Cumberland Avenue

Harlan, KY 40831

GivingTuesday is a global generosity movement unleashing the power of people and organizations to transform their communities and the world on Dec. 3 and every day.

It was created in 2012 as a simple idea: A day that encourages people to do good. Over the past seven years, this idea has grown into a global movement that inspires hundreds of millions of people to give, collaborate, and celebrate generosity.