CUPERTINO, CA - April 25, 2005 - The Iranian Youth Scholarship fund, a chapter of the Iranian Federated Women's Club (IFWC) today announced that it had an outstanding fundraising on April 17th, 2005 at the Palo Alto Elks Lodge, and that the deadline for applications has been extended to May 21st, 2005.

"This was our Seventh Annual Scholarship Fundraising. We are grateful to two magnificent individuals who supported our event. They were our keynote speaker, Professor Karimi Hakkak, the Founding Director of Persian Studies at the University of Maryland, and  Ms. Homa Sarshar, the well known Iranian author and journalist, who was our Mistress of Ceremony.", said the Chair of the Youth Scholarship Committee Mrs. Azadeh Hariri.  She added: " This year we raised over $46,000 from auctions and around $96,000 from ticket sales and donations.  The total funds raised were $142,000."

The IFWC Youth Scholarship Fund provides scholarships up to $10,000 to undergraduate Iranian-American Students studying at or entering a 4 year college in the United States.  IFWC is a non-profit 501C-3 registered organization. Volunteers run the scholarship program, hence 100% of the donations received for the Youth Scholarship Fund go towards scholarships for Iranian-American students studying in an American University.

Azadeh Hariri, said  "We support our recipients until they graduate. We have 15 students from last year that should be supported, and we estimate about $100,000 of the funds raised will go toward scholarships for last year's students. In order to support more new students, we are hoping to receive more donations." She added "This year we received a noticeable amount of donations from Iranians outside of the San Francisco Bay Area.  Anyone interested in supporting our program should contact us using the information given above. Any amount of donation, no matter how small, is welcomed."   

Students can download the scholarship application in the pdf format from our web site at www.payvand.org/scholarship.  The deadline for students to mail in their applications is now May 21, 2005.

About the Iranian Youth Scholarship Fund

The Iranian Youth Scholarship Fund was formed in March 2000, with the vision of helping Iranian youth who are accepted into undergraduate programs of a four-year college in the United States and who are in need of financial assistance. These students must maintain a certain grade point average to receive up to $10,000.00 per year.  Visit www.payvand.org/scholarship to find out more.


Contact:
Mehdi Safipour
Tel: (408) 857-2709
Email: safipour@iranianscholarships.com  or IFWC@aol.com
URL:  www.iranianscholarships.com