From committee to connection

Rachel Pitchford

Each year, the Quad Cities Community Foundation awards more than 70 scholarships totaling over half a million dollars. At the annual reception in May, donors to those scholarships and the students who receive them have the special chance to come together and celebrate the power of generosity to open doors to educational opportunities and dreams.  

In the crowd, there’s another proud party—members of the Scholarship Committee, local volunteers who carefully review each application and very often become personally invested in the students they learn about and the recommendations they make to the Community Foundation’s staff. 

“We’re sitting there with the students we fought for, and we’re almost crying,” said Rachel Pitchford, who was introduced to the committee four years ago and has been “obsessed” with it ever since. “It’s almost like we’re living vicariously through those students.”

For Pitchford, it’s the sense of one-on-one connection with each applicant that sets the time she gives on the Scholarship Committee apart from other volunteer experiences. “Instead of supporting an overall cause or mission, we get to relate on an individual basis,” she said. “I really like getting down to the nitty-gritty, learning each person’s story and their goals.”

At times, committee discussions during the review process can become lively. “Especially if you’re seeing something other people in the group may not be recognizing, it’s meaningful to be that voice for students,” said Pitchford, whose family instilled in her the importance of being involved and giving back. “That includes being an advocate for those who might not have that platform.”

She’ll never forget one conversation she had as a college student herself with her grandmother. “She asked me, ‘What are you doing?’ and I told her about work and my classes. She said, ‘No, what are you doing?’ That was her diplomatic way of saying, ‘Get started.’ The very next day I went to the student life office and said, ‘My grandma said I need to get involved.’ It snowballed from there.”

Before long, Pitchford went from sitting in the audience of student government meetings to serving as secretary and, eventually, as student body president. She soon became a student representative on the Illinois Community College Board and the Illinois Board of Higher Education. Today, she gives her time, talent, and voice to organizations and issues across the Quad Cities. “Now, it’s something I don’t consider optional,” she said. 

As she eagerly looks ahead to this year’s scholarship reception and the joy it will bring her, she hopes more of her fellow community members will reflect on what they’re doing—and take their own steps to find the causes they, too, can become obsessed with.

“We need you—the world needs you,” she said. “When we have a steady influx of people with diverse backgrounds, skill sets, wisdom, and voices getting involved, it keeps things fresh, it keeps things fair, and it keeps people included and receiving opportunities that they might not have otherwise. We need you.”