Grants
The Huguenot Society of America has a long history of donating funds to various causes in America and France. Early in the Society's history, giving was primarily directed to charities abroad. Early beneficiaries included the Huguenot Church in the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral (Canterbury, England) and the Jean Calvin Institute (Montauban, France), a school for Protestant boys
. Funds were also given to French churches, missions, and organizations whose goal it was to chronicle and foster French Protestant history.
In the early part of the twentieth century, the Society also sent financial gifts to the French Leper Society and helped the American Red Cross in its activities to help people in devastated conditions. During and after World War II, the Society made substantial donations to the United Service Organization for National Defense and the Foster Parents Plan for War Children and Foster Homes for Children in France Funds.
In recent years, the Society has focused on supporting academic research and preservation projects. In 1972, the Society donated funds to the Huguenot Historical Society of New Paltz for restoration work. The Society continues to bestow grants to scholars for the research and writing of papers related to our Huguenot history. In addition, continued support is given to l'eglise Francaise du Saint-Esprit.
In 1956, the Society established an annual scholarship at Cornell University to be awarded to the young man or woman recommended by the university, subject to the recipient's proof of descent from a Huguenot who settled in what is now the United States of America before November 28, 1787 -- the date of the issue of the Edict of Toleration.
Marie L. Rose, a French-born widow residing in New York City, died on December 17, 1960, bequething her residuary estate to the Society as a trust fund, the income to be used to give financial assistance to American men and women of Huguenot ancestry attending college. The ancestor had to have left France for what is now the United States of America or other countries before the issue of the Edict of Toleration in 1787. The gift proved sufficient to confer twenty scholarships of $1,000 a year. The Society decided to follow the same procedure as adopted in the Cornell scholarship (which was then included in the broader Marie L. Rose Huguenot Society of America Scholarship), that is, grants of $1,000 a year were made to twenty institutions which name the recipient, subject to his or her proof of descent. Over the years, the grant has grown to reflect the rise in the cost of living. Each year, scholarships are granted to approximately twenty-five or thirty students studying at the colleges and universities listed below. A student can receive a scholarship for each of his or her undergraduate years, as long as the college or university continues its recommendation.
