Officials from AT&T will once again be throwing a bash to benefit high school students around the Bay Area. However, this year the telecommunications company made the call to involve the community in what used to be an in-house only event.

The second annual White Linen Charity Event will be held Saturday at the San Ramon Marriott — with proceeds from the sold-out event going toward providing scholarships to nine deserving African-American high school students.

Recipients of the $1,000 scholarships attend Deer Valley High School in Antioch, Berkeley High School, Encinal High School in Alameda, Weston Ranch High School in Stockton, San Francisco School of the Arts, El Cerrito High School and Benicia High School. The organization also awarded a $1,500 scholarship to five students at an all-girls school in Tanzania.

The event is being hosted by Community NETWork — also known as the African-American Telecommunications Professionals of AT&T. Members are trying to go “outside of themselves” to encourage more community involvement for their cause, said Lottie Scott, a committee chairwoman for the event.

“Last year, the event was closed in the SBC family, but now we are reaching outside to try to get more involvement from the communities we are trying to help,” shesaid.

The scholarship program has been in place at the local level since 1981, said Paul OSullivan, president of the bay chapter of Community NETWork.

The idea for the gala started so that all members of the group could meet and congratulate the winners and their family.

AT&T, formerly SBC Communications, has one of its largest laboratories for technology consulting and development in San Ramon.

In an effort to reach out to the community, city leaders were invited to the event, Scott said.

A lot of our executives for our operations in the west work at the San Ramon office, AT&T spokeswoman Kathleen Helsper said.

The event is focused in San Ramon, since a lot of us moved out here after the merger, OSullivan said.

Although Saturdays event is sold out, donations for the scholarship fund can be sent to Community NETWork , P.O. Box 896, San Ramon, 94583.

For more information on the scholarship program, contact Paul OSullivan at (925) 823-5288.

Source: insidebayarea.com

This entry was posted by Taman Siswa on Friday, May 19, 2006 at 6:37 pm and is filed under Education News, Scholarship. Tags: Antioch, Benicia High School, Berkeley High School, Deer Valley High School, El Cerrito High School, Encinal High School, Kathleen Helsper, Lottie Scott, San Francisco School of the Arts, SBC Communications, Scholarship, Student, Tanzania, technology consulting, telecommunications, Weston Ranch High School, . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.