A local business is stepping up to provide financial aid to members of the Perry High School graduating class.

The inaugural Hotel Pattee 2020 Scholarship Program is being presented by owners Tom and Vicki Maxwell, and involves awarding $1,000 each to 20 PHS seniors for their post-secondary schooling. Tom says the idea came about with advice from his business partner Jenny Eklund, after he and his wife decided they wanted to do something positive for people negatively impacted by COVID-19. “Obviously through the global pandemic, there was so many people that their lives changed dramatically. And one of the areas that my wife and I have been watching closely is how our local schools have had to modify their remote learning, how kids were unable to get to play their final season of sports, or their band concerts or their choir groups. It just changed everything related to this class of seniors; their final year was impacted greatly. And we’re trying to figure out a way to help anyway we can, and so Vicki and I started thinking about, ‘Well, what can we do for Perry?’ So that’s how it started, and that’s how we kind of decided that we would do the Hotel Pattee 2020 Scholarship Program that we’re talking about.”

The applications will be available on the Hotel Pattee website starting Friday, and are due by July 1st. Maxwell says the form won’t be difficult to fill out, but he feels it will help them properly vet the students most deserving and in need of the financial support. After the 20 recipients are named, there will be a reception at the hotel where the scholarships will be distributed. To learn more about the program, listen to today’s Perry Fareway Let’s Talk Dallas County program on air and at RaccoonValleyRadio.com.