NSC Youth Education Support Campaign

For the first time since its founding in 1957, the National Space Club is initiating a fundraising campaign in support of its programs focused on youth education, internships, scholarships, and awards. These programs all have the unifying theme of encouraging, recognizing and rewarding excellence in astronautics and related sciences, especially among the students who will become the industry and government leaders of the future. They are the principal beneficiaries of any funds raised by the National Space Club through its events, particularly the annual Dr. Robert H. Goddard Memorial Dinner.

Through the years, the Club has been able to raise sufficient proceeds from its activities to fully fund these important and highly valued programs. However, with steadily rising costs and the reduced income from drastically lower interest rates, it has become not only difficult to maintain our support at past levels, but impossible to increase it in some very important and critical educational areas.

One of the most significant of these is the National Space Club Scholars Program, in which the Club cooperates in the sponsorship of a number of summer internships at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and it's Wallops Flight Center, for high school juniors and seniors. While this is not the only youth-oriented program at Goddard, it is recognized as one of the very best among such activities, and one that deserves to be expanded. In the 25 years of the program's existence, more than 525 students have had this experience, and many former scholars have returned as NASA employees. There are now even a few "second generation" mentors - former scholars who are mentoring the new generation of students. Could there be a better endorsement of the value of this program?

Details about the program, and some pictures of the scholars, may be found on the National Space Club Scholars Program page. We encourage you to read some of the scholars' own comments about the program on the Scholars Page, but perhaps the most telling are those from some of the mentors, the GSFC scientists and engineers who work with the scholars each summer. These comments can be found on the Mentors Page.

Significantly, these busy, dedicated people want the Club to send more of these bright, energetic young women and men to them for the meaningful and enriching experiences they get from this program. We very much want to do this, as well as increase the stipend we provide to the scholars to bring it at least to a par with some of the other programs, but this cannot be done within the constraints of our current funding capability. The Club has allocated nearly $60,000 annually for the stipends to the 30 scholars and to cover the costs and administrative expenses of the program.

The annual Dr. Robert H. Goddard $10,000 scholarship is given to a university junior or senior, to encourage study in the fields of engineering and science. Details about the scholarship can be found on the Dr. Robert H. Goddard Scholarship page. Other scholarships, fellowships and awards require an annual total of $16,000 or more.

All of these worthy efforts are putting a heavy strain on the Club, and may require scaling back unless we are able to find additional funding. We ask that you consider joining us in this important effort! Your contribution may be directed to a specific program, or to the general support of the programs. Donations to the National Space Club Scientific and Education Foundation, an exempt organization under 501(c)(3) and 509(a)(3), are deductible under section 170 of the Internal Revenue Code. Contributions may be sent directly to:

National Space Club
Scientific and Education Foundation
2025 M Street, NW
Suite 800
Washington, DC 20036

The National Space Club wishes to recognize those individuals and organizations that provide this essential extra support to its youth education programs. A listing of the individuals and organizations that have made donations is given on the Donor Listing page.

Here is a link to a Donation Form. Open this form (requires Adobe Reader*), print it, and mail with your contribution to the address above.

*To download Adobe Reader, click on Get Adobe Reader.

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