December 15, 2006—Landscape Forms has joined forces with the Kalamazoo-based business organization, Southwest Michigan First (SMF) and several other local businesses, in an agreement with the Monroe-Brown Foundation that will enhance for students the benefits that are provided by “The Kalamazoo Promise.”
The SMF program will provide summer internship packages to 25 students that will provide at least $8,800 in scholarship money, bonuses, and hourly wages to them. Eligible to apply for the program are juniors, seniors, and graduate students from Western Michigan University, juniors and seniors at Kalamazoo College, and students going into at least their second year at Kalamazoo Valley Community College.
Each company in the program will hire one or two interns for summer work, to which they will dedicate 400 hours and be paid at least the minimum wage. Upon completion, each intern will receive a $500 bonus from the employer and another $500 from the Monroe-Brown Foundation. In addition, scholarships of $2,500 will be offered by the Foundation at the end of the students’ first and second semesters of college.
The program is designed to keep more local college graduates in the area and to help attract people thinking of relocation to the area. SMF believes that these two programs will help keep talented graduates in SW Michigan by providing opportunities to both pay for their education and jump-start their careers.
Landscape Forms believes in the power of design to enrich outdoor spaces, and it already has had an active scholarship program in place to benefit landscape architecture students in their senior year of undergraduate study in an ASLA accredited program.
For more information, visit the Landscape Forms Web site as well the company’s ad on FMLink.
