03 Dec National Shoe Travelers (NST) Donates $1M to Two Ten Footwear Foundation
Two Ten Footwear Foundation, the footwear industry’s national charitable foundation – and its strategic partner, National Shoe Travelers (NST) jointly announced the formation of a new annual higher education scholarship fund made available to NST members, their children and their grandchildren. Two Ten will administer the scholarship fund along with its industry-wide scholarship offerings, including those made available specifically to U.S. Veterans. Applications for the NST scholarship are currently being accepted through Two Ten’s website at http://www.twoten.org/scholarships.
The National Shoe Travelers is a membership organization whose goals are to represent and significantly improve the well-being of traveling sales representatives who work within the Footwear Industry. Through their partnership with Two Ten, NST proudly becomes the only rep organization in the Footwear Industry to offer higher educational scholarships to not only its members, but to their families.
“Two Ten has been providing educational scholarships to the footwear industry for 45 years; they are the logical partner to administer the NST scholarship funds to our members to ensure that the benefit will be available for NST members and their families for generations to come,” said Terry Bastis, president of NST. “As a Charity Navigator 4-star ranked nonprofit, we have the utmost confidence in Two Ten to steward these funds well.”
This $1 million scholarship fund gift – coupled with NST’s $1.5 million endowment fund gift made to Two Ten in 2012 – demonstrates NST’s steadfast commitment to take care of its membership base. This scholarship fund will enable a member, or member’s children or grandchildren to be able to apply to the Scholarship program that will be based on financial need and merit and receive up to $5,000 a year for four years of higher education. The NST Scholarship fund will be implemented immediately and enrollment period will be December 2014 to March 2015. Applications will be sent through the Two Ten Scholarship portal. The initial ten recipients of the NST scholarship fund will be receiving awards for College for fall of 2015.
“Our long-standing strategic partnership with NST has allowed us to better serve their members by providing emergency financial assistance at times of crisis,” said Neal Newman, president of Two Ten Footwear Foundation. With this additional $1 million dollar gift, we will be able to provide college scholarships for NST members, which dovetails nicely into the existing NST offering.”
“The NST scholarship will impact our members by allowing them to have access for their children and grandchildren. Our members have given so much to our industry over the years it’s exciting to be able to set this up for generations to come,” said Mark Pecoraro, vice president of NST.