GM Doing Good 'N The Hood: Helping Minority Students Fund School

While today’s automakers are under pressure to build reliable vehicles and to turn a profit, Buick, which is a part of the GM family, has managed to do both.  Although a number of automakers give lip service on how they are striving for diversity and how they are giving back to the community, Buick is one of the few automotive brands living up to the hype. This may be why Buick is one of the fastest growing brands with African Americans.

Recently, I sat down with Vivian Pickard, the director of corporate relations and president of the GM foundation, and one of the recent recipients of Buick’s Achievers Scholarship program, while attending a conference in Chicago.  From the interview, it was quite obvious to literally see how the automaker is impacting the next-generation.  Without the assistance of GM’s scholarship, many of the recipients would have to defer their dream of going to college. Fortunately, GM forward-thinking executives realize that they must make an investment in the community, giving students a hand-up so that they can pursue their dream without being saddled with mounds of debt for years (or in many undocumented cases decades) to come.

To find out more about the Buick Achievers Scholarship program and how you or someone you know can possibly qualify for tuition assistance, click here. In addition to maintaining good grades, special consideration is given to those who are the first in their family to seek higher education, females, minorities, military veterans and those going into the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.  Just think: what could have happened if the government wouldn’t have given GM aid during the auto bailout a few years ago? I am not aware of any of the imports that are offering such assistance. My thoughts are that we would probably have a number of well-deserved students who wouldn’t be able to pursue their education or for that matter their calling.