Upward Bound
Intralot and Scientific Games are contributing to our communities by providing gifts to college and university Upward Bound programs.
Intralot and Scientific Games, in partnership with the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery, recently unveiled the two vendors’ financial gifts totaling $40,000 to the Upward Bound programs throughout Arkansas. Lottery Director Bishop Woosley pointed to the contributions as just one more way to serve education in our state. “The lottery’s funding for scholarships for Arkansas students is moving toward the $400 million mark, but there are many underserved students who, with help from Upward Bound, can reach their goals and get access to higher education. The lottery and its vendor partners Intralot and SGI wanted to do our part to make sure even more students benefit from our efforts,” Woosley said.
The gifts are directed specifically at technology for the use of the Upward Bound students, and the sale of lottery tickets depends on a massive technological structure that produces the tickets and monitors the sales for each of the almost 2000 retailers in Arkansas who sell lottery tickets. Arkansas Lottery Commissioner Ben Pickard of Searcy, with input from ALC Higher Education Chair Raymond Frazier, originated the idea and worked with staff and vendor representatives to bring the program to fruition.
Upward Bound is part of TRIO, which is a set of federally-funded college opportunity pro- grams that motivate and support students from disadvantaged backgrounds in their pursuit of college degrees. The TRIO programs were the first national college access and retention programs to address the serious social and cultural barriers to education in the U.S. They began in the early 1960s as part of President Johnson’s War on Poverty to ensure educational opportunity for all Americans, regardless of race, ethnic background, or economic circumstance. In many communities, these programs, which now serve traditional students, displaced workers and veterans, are some of the only programs available that help students overcome the class, social, academic and cultural barriers to higher education.
Special recognition goes to Mary Kate Snow, President, Arkansas Association of Student Assistance Programs, and Dr. Constance Nowell, TRIO Coordinator, who guided the process to make sure the funding would be applied in a way most beneficial to the students they serve. The gift was made by Scientific Games of Alpharetta, Georgia, and Intralot, Inc., of Duluth, Georgia, the ALC’s two major vendors, who support the operation of the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery’s instant and draw games. Sale of those tickets is the sole source for the more than $375 million provided for college scholarships in Arkansas by the lottery operation during the last four years. Intralot and SGI have pledged to make these gifts annually through 2016, and the benefits will continue to accrue to Arkansas students with hopes for a college education.
In Arkansas, the Upward Bound programs are administered through these institutions of higher education, each receiving an equal portion of the $40,000 for technology for the UB programs: