Hancock County Promise Event Awards Local Kindergarteners

The Promise Indiana Hancock County program recently celebrated another successful year of enrolling hundreds of kindergarteners in their own personal College Choice 529 Plan. The PI Hancock County program aims to foster a community-wide culture where all students have the opportunity to open a CollegeChoice 529 Direct Savings Account, which assures that students have a college savings account at an early age. The program strives to ensure every student believes they can have a post-secondary education and has their community’s support. 

Stakeholders from all around the county attended: superintendents, principals, parents, staff and kindergarteners from all Hancock County schools. Excitingly, six $250 scholarships were awarded to randomly selected kindergarten students who had opened a 529 savings account this school year through the Promise program. The winners included Beatrice Garritano from Weston Elementary, Bodan Stainbrook from NewPal Elementary, Brylee Shepherd from McCordsville Elementary, Carter Frentz from Mt. Comfort Elementary, Claire Kessler from Harris Elementary and Rosanna MacDonald from Mt. Comfort Elementary.

Dr. Scott Shipley is the PI Hancock County Chairperson and also the Director of Curriculum at Mt. Vernon Community School Corporation. Shipley states, “I want to start with ‘why’ we have a local chapter of Promise Indiana. Our ‘why’ is the young people seated at these tables. It’s not about a big amount of money in a child’s savings account. It’s about getting a family to start talking about the fact that we’re saving for college when a child is very, very young.”

Overall, Shipley describes the Promise Indiana Hancock County celebration as “a huge success.” He also thanked their platinum donors who all have given $25,000 or more to the program: Greenfield Banking Company, Hancock Health, NineStar Connect and Meijer.