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Organization Focused On Scholarships

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By STEPHEN HAMMILL, The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 29, 2007

ODESSA - A doctor and former patient fall in love. It's a storybook beginning.

What they did next just may surpass it.

Hugo and Alicia Keim, founders and directors of the ChairScholars foundation, have given out 510 college scholarships during the past 15 years; 359 of those were distributed in the Tampa Bay area.

ChairScholars mission is to provide physically disabled, financially disadvantaged children a college education or vocational training.

'Our goal is to take students in poverty situations from dependency and make them successful - to teach them a profession where they can earn a viable living,' Hugo Keim said. 'This year we took 15 kids from Hillsborough County, five from Polk, eight from Pinellas and four from Pasco, plus 20 kids from the national campaign.'

The foundation is two-tiered. The national program is available to high school seniors and college freshmen. The scholarship provides up to $20,000, distributed within four years, for tuition at the students' college of choice.

The local program provides either full tuition for a bachelor's degree through the Florida university system or tuition assistance for vocational training.

Before moving to Tampa, Keim spent 29 years as chief of spinal surgery at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York. His future wife came to him as a patient, plagued with a severe curvature of the spine.

In 1985 the two were married. As avid clay-target shooters, they frequently visited Tampa for competitions. Some of their friends and fellow shooters were in wheelchairs.

'It's a great sport because if you're a paraplegic you can do it just as well as a so-called able-bodied person,' Alicia Keim said.

They began teaching more paraplegic people how to shoot, eventually sponsoring the 'ChairShooters' event, the forerunner to ChairScholars.

'People were stuffing our shooting-vest pockets with money,' Alicia Keim said. 'We had $3,000 left over one year and thought, what could we do with this money? We figured the natural thing would be to have a scholarship for kids with disabilities.'

In 1995 they linked up with the Hillsborough Education Foundation, a nonprofit organization aimed at student and teacher assistance programs not funded by public tax revenue.

'We take out a bond through the Florida Prepaid College Plan. The state matches the money we put in, and the kids are guaranteed a four-year college education,' Hugo Keim said. 'We need to take in at least $600,000 a year to make the project work.'

National sponsorship helps.

Scholarship winners are provided full tuition for a bachelor's degree through the state university system or tuition assistance for vocational training.

Applicants must be enrolled in public school, suffer from a serious physical challenge and must meet financial-need requirements, such as qualifying in the National School Lunch Program, a federally assisted meal program established in 1946.

Scholarship winners are provided a mentor by the education foundation. They also sign contracts, agreeing to remain drug- and crime-free. The contracts are signed at the Foundation's annual ChairScholars Festival.

'The fact that these two people have raised $6 million all on their own is an amazing thing,' said administrative assistant Caroll Vick.

The foundation's sole employee, Vick joined the ChairScholars a year ago from the Arts Council of Hillsborough County. The Keims also sponsor the Unsinkable Molly Brown Foundation in concert with the county, dedicated to raising money for art education in public schools.

The rest of ChairScholars workers are volunteers, numbering in the hundreds.

'Most of our benefactors and volunteers remain anonymous,' Alicia Keim said.

Hugo Keim asks potential donors to make informed decisions, no matter where they choose to send their money. 'There are just too many charities that steal money,' he said.

According to an independent 2007 audit, just 2 percent of the ChairScholars expenses were administrative in nature. The remanding 98 percent went to scholarships.

The motto at ChairScholars: No physical disability should deter a motivated mind. Participating students are no longer strictly wheelchair-bound. 'They could be blind, deaf, in remission, not in remission,' Alicia Keim said.

The only limit to how many kids they will take in is how much money they can raise. 'The thing that's nice is we can tell someone, 'If you give me $5,000, I can get that money matched and guarantee a college education for a seriously challenged kid in a poverty situation.' That's about the best bargain in America.'

A September spotlight in People magazine raised the couple's profile to new heights. The Keims are adamant about keeping the focus on the efforts of the charity.

'We needed national attention, not just for the work we're doing but for the plight of the physically disabled,' Vick said. 'They're the forgotten minority in our society.'

Hugo Keim recalled a young scholarship winner who had a severe facial deformity.

'This sums it up pretty well,' he said. 'We got a letter from a mother who attended our festival last year with her daughter, and when she told her it was time to go home, she responded 'I don't want to go home. This is the only place where I don't feel like I'm a freak.' It tugs at your heart.'

The Keims bought their 58-acre lakeside home in 1996. They cleared out a field for the kids to put on the yearly festival. It allows the Keims and donors to meet with every scholarship winner and his or her family.

'It's also a free day of fun and games for the kids,' Hugo Keim said. 'We give away our scholarships there.'

Hugo Keim said when they pass away the property will go to the charity. 'It's nice to know this is something that will live beyond us,' Alicia Keim said.

The future for the foundation is grounded in its new chapters. A New York chapter opened two years ago. The foundation will inaugurate a Sarasota chapter Tuesday.

Information and application instructions can be found at www.chairscholars.org.

Reporter Stephen Hammill can be reached at (813) 865-1523 or at shammill@tampatrib.com.

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