Scholarships

The Coordinator of the Scholarship Ministry Team removes personal data from the applications and codes the applications before distributing them to the Ministry Team members. Each Ministry Team member then reviews and rates all applications based on a standard set of criteria, including the quality of the application and the documentation of any financial need. The full Ministry Team then meets and collectively reaches final award recommendations to the Foundry UMC Board for approval. Please note that all information provided by the applicants is held in strict confidence. As noted, all application review is done anonymously. After the scholarships have been awarded, all applications, or copies thereof, used by the Scholarship Ministry Team are destroyed. If you receive an award, your name (but not the amount of your scholarship) will be public information.

Award amounts vary from year to year depending on the award allotment available from the underlying investments and the number of applicants.

We hope to have all applications reviewed and decisions made as early as possible in the summer so that applicants can plan for the coming 2025-2026 school year. All applicants whose applications are reviewed will be notified by email — either that they have been granted a scholarship or that they did not receive a scholarship. Award recipients will then be announced to the Foundry United Methodist Church community.

Yes! We encourage past recipients to re-apply if they are eligible.

The 2025 Scholarship Ministry Team members are: Margie McKelvey (chair), Henry Curry, Parker Low, Cathy O’Sullivan, Steve Zagami, and Natalie Harvey (ex officio). Connect with us at Foundry or email us at scholarships@foundryumc.org

Reverend Dr. Bauman (1927-2021) served as the senior minister of Foundry UMC from 1964 to 1992. When he arrived in 1964, the church was racially segregated and did not welcome Black members; it moved to do so in 1965. Dr. Bauman encouraged he formation of mission groups to tackle social justice issues such as hunger and homelessness. He sparked controversy in 1977 when he preached on “The Gay Life" as part of a series on love and marriage - a sermon that was also carried on the Bauman Bible Telecast - wherein he said, “the spirit of Christ will enable us to express compassion and acceptance toward the homosexuals among us.” Another later controversial sermon on Judaism, Christianity, and Islam noted that each worshipped the same God. In 1979, Time magazine named Dr. Bauman one of the nation's top seven preachers based on his ability to nurture his congregation and "convey, along with solid content and skillful delivery, the sense of overwhelming conviction.” Upon his departure from Foundry, Dr. Bauman shocked everyone when he sent a letter to each church member confessing that during his nearly 28 years as their pastor, he had had inappropriate relationships with several women in the congregation , tarnishing an otherwise wonderful reputation.

Dr. Alida Smith, who died in 1977 at the age of 97, was an educator in Washington, DC, teaching Latin at Central High School (now Cardozo). She also earned a law degree and, although she never actively practiced law, she was admitted to practice before the Supreme Court. A life member of the Washington Club (a ladies club 1891-2014), she founded its poetry section and was a published poet herself. She was a former president of the University Women's Club in DC and an active member of Foundry for many years. (The old baptismal font now in one of the Foundry classrooms was donated by Smith and her brother David in honor of their mother.) The scholarship fund in her honor was established by her sister-in-law, Grace H. Smith, in 1978. In the early 1980s at the time the Foundry UMC sanctuary was being renovated and the new Casavant organ installed, there was significant controversy over the decision to spend large sums of money on our building at a time when, as now, there were so many social ministry needs. So at the insistence of some Foundry members, fundraising for additional scholarship funding was part of the capital campaign effort that included the organ and the other renovations.