About Us
The ScholarHouse Foundation "TSF" was incorporated on May 16, 2006 qualifying as a tax exempt charitable organization under section 501(c)(3). Its mission is to help deserving students attend institutions of higher education in New York State by providing scholarships in the form of rent-free housing. TSF will not provide cash scholarships to students, rather, its scholarships take the form of rent savings which a student enjoys when living in one of TSF's Scholarship houses.
TSF's mission serves an exempt charitable organization because it relates to the advancement of education. Its goal is to purchase houses, or receive donated houses from the general public, within the vicinity of college campuses in New York and offer same-sex housing at no cost to qualified students with outstanding academic achievements, good character and financial need. In doing so, TSF hopes to enable such students to realize their dream of a college or graduate school education which they otherwise would not have been able to attain.
Scholarship recipients from a variety of backgrounds and cultures would live together in the scholarship house and, as a group, share the duties and responsibilities necessary to maintain a household. For example, the house members would establish a weekly or monthly budget to run the house, plan and shop for food, cook, clean, and study together. Each house member would contribute his share of the monthly food and utility bills for the house.
A house member may reside in the scholarship house for the duration of his college or graduate school education provided he continues to demostrate financial need, maintains a required grade point average, lives cooperatively within the house with other house members, and abides by the house rules.
By living and working together as housemates, TSF hopes that house members will gain valuable life skills and foster lifelong frienships and have the opportunity to pursue a higher education with less debt burden through rent-free housing.
TSF will be modeled after The Southern Scholarship Foundation, Inc. ("SSF"), a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation dedicated to providing capable, motivated and financially needy students with rent-free housing scholarships at one of the 25 furnished scholarship houses adjacent to select universities in Florida.
About The Founder
The Founder of TSF is Adele Arkin, the owner of Baby Cute LLC, a franchisee provider of Stroller Strides & Fit4Baby on Long Island. More information about this company can be found at www.strollerstrides.net/longisland. Prior to becoming a mother and business owner of Baby Cute LLC, Ms. Arkin spent eight years working mostly for wall street financial firms, and two years as a real estate agent. Ms. Arkin is a first generation American and the first person in her family to earn a college degree. She grew up in Brooklyn, NY and attended High School and College in Florida. She earned a B.S. in Psychology, with minors in Statistics and Education, from the University of Florida in 1997.
During most of her undergraduate career at the University of Florida, Ms. Arkin lived in one of The Southern Scholarship Foundation residences. It is there she learned the value of working hard, living in a multi-cultural house, and the gratitude to attend college and live rent-free. especially during a time when her family went bankrupt. She also spent her last year in college as a Resident Assistant on campus overseeing an apartment complex that housed approximately 60 upper classmen.
After graduating from the University of Florida, Ms. Arkin attended New York University and earned her M.A. in Community Counseling in 1999. While working at Lehman Brothers, Ms. Arkin entered an executive MBA program at Pace University. Realizing and appreciating the wonderful opportunity that The Southern Scholarship Foundation gave to her, Ms. Arkin wants to give back to her society by providing a similar opportunity to qualified students in NY who, like herself, would not be able to attend college or graduate school without such a housing scholarship.
During her executive MBA program, Adele's mission was to form The ScholarHouse Foundation. After years of ongoing effort and pro-bono support from Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthall LLP, The ScholarHouse Foundation was born. Join her in her effort to help deserving students in NY attain their higher education goals by making a tax deductible contribution to The ScholarHouse Foundation. THANK YOU!