New legacy scholarship pays tribute to parents

Fred and Lillian Sherman opened a small shoe store in Detroit in the 1920s. Latvian immigrants eager to achieve the American dream, they worked together to weather the Great Depression and build the business that decades later their son would expand greatly.

That son, D. Larry Sherman, is now honoring his late parents with a Michigan Retailers Foundation scholarship named for them.

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 eighth named scholarship that the foundation awards annually.

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

Applications from high school seniors and college freshmen, sophomores and juniors for the 2005-06 academic year awards were due April 1. Recipients of the one-year scholarships—$500 for community college or $1,000 for university—were selected in early May by a panel of educators chosen by Scholarship Program Administrators, the firm that oversees MRA’s program.

The scholarship program has grown dramatically because of the Links to a Legacy fundraising campaign chaired by Sherman, an MRA board member and retired owner of the former Sherman Shoes in Birmingham.

The campaign, which began in late 2002, is in the final year of its three-year effort to double the foundation’s assets to $1 million in order to continue aggressive growth in the scholarship program.

To start or continue building your own legacy, you can make a tax-deductible contribution to the foundation. For information, contact MRA’s Retha Lachance at 800.366.3699 or rlachance@retailers.com.