Tuna tournament in its final year nets $287K for community college students
The Sturdivant Island Tuna Tournament ended its 21-year run as New England’s top cash prize tuna event by raising $287,000 in support of scholarship for Maine community college students.
In announcing that this year’s tournament would be the last, the board of directors urged the tournament’s sponsors, donors, auction patrons and friends to go “that extra mile one last time” with their donations in honor of the tournament’s founder, Philip H. Grondin Sr., who died in September 2017.
“This year’s gift of $287,000 to the Foundation for Maine’s Community Colleges marks the tournament’s largest single donation to the community colleges’ scholarship funds,” the organization stated in a news release.
Since its founding in 1998, the tournament has raised $877,000 to support the state’s community college students.
This year’s investment, when combined with contributions from previous years of the tournament, will ensure that each of Maine’s community colleges has an endowed scholarship of $100,000 that will grow over time and provide annual scholarship support to students across the state.
“The entire committee worked tirelessly this year to hit and exceed my dad’s goal of having a $100,000 scholarship endowment, at all seven community colleges,” said Larry Grondin, tournament vice president and a member of the board of trustees of the Maine Community College System.
Audrey Thomson, president of the Foundation for Maine’s Community Colleges, thanked “the dedicated volunteers who made the tournament possible for over two decades and to the Grondin family for its longstanding support of our hardworking students.”
“These scholarships will support students, year in and year out, as they gain the skills and education they need to contribute in important ways to the Maine economy,” she said.
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