For Immediate Release
August 1, 2005

LANSING — Michigan Retailers Association announces the creation of a new named scholarship, the Fred E. and Lillian Sherman Scholarship, as part of their scholarship program, now in its eighth year. The new scholarship was made possible by generous contributions to Michigan Retailers Foundation from D. Larry Sherman, an MRA board member and retired owner of the former Sherman Shoes in Birmingham.

Sherman, who already has a scholarship in his name and who chairs the foundation’s Links to a Legacy fundraising campaign, chose the new scholarship name to honor his parents, Latvian immigrants who opened a small shoe store in Detroit in 1925.

"A few years after they opened, they found themselves in the middle of the Great Depression," says Sherman.

"Every single company they bought from went out of business. But they survived, working as a team. This scholarship is only a small tribute to their memory, but it’s very gratifying."

Michigan Retailers Foundation is a nonprofit educational organization established by MRA in 1968 to provide college scholarships to benefit retailers and their employees and families. Financial need is not a consideration.

A named scholarship is the form of recognition that the foundation provides to contributors who reach the Legacy Club level by donating at least $10,000 to the scholarship fund during their life (or through their estate). The Fred E. and Lillian Sherman Scholarship becomes the seventh named scholarship that the foundation awards annually.

Other named scholarships in the program include the D. Larry Sherman Scholarship; the Nathan Rosenfeld Scholarship, named for the founder of Jacobson stores; the Raymond A. and Mildred C. Sobelton Scholarship, funded by MRA board member Peter Sobelton and his sister and brother-in-law, Barbara and Douglas Stranahan, in honor of the Sobeltons’ parents, founders of Churchills Ltd.; the Target Scholarship, founded by contributions from Target and MRA board member Joe Swanson, Target’s district team leader for metro Detroit; the Michigan Retailers Services Inc. Scholarship and the Retailers Fund Scholarship.

The named scholarships are in addition to other college scholarships awarded by the Foundation each spring. This year a record total of 27 scholarships were awarded.

Michigan Retailers Association is the unified voice of retailing in Michigan and the nation’s largest state trade association of general merchandise retailers. MRA’s nearly 6,000 retail business members operate more than 13,000 stores across the state.