JJC Foundation Awards $1.33 Million in Fall Scholarships, Adds $3 Million to Endowments

Joliet Junior College | September 16, 2026

Article Summary: The JJC Foundation has awarded $1,333,452 in scholarships for the fall semester alone and its board voted this week to allocate $3 million across the foundation’s endowments, Executive Director Amanda Quinn told the Board of Trustees on Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026.

JJC Foundation Key Points:

$1,333,452 awarded in scholarships for the fall semester; 1,092 scholarships awarded so far this year against 1,128 for all of last year.

The foundation board voted Tuesday to allocate $3 million to the principal of its endowments, which total about $33 million.

The college received a federal TRIO Educational Talent Search grant worth $500,000 a year for five years — double its previous award.

A former JJC psychology instructor left the college $4 million in her will.

JOLIET — The JJC Foundation has awarded $1,333,452 in scholarships for the fall semester and will push $3 million into the principal of its endowments, Amanda Quinn told the Joliet Junior College Board of Trustees on Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026.

Quinn said the foundation’s scholarship coordinator, Kelly Baker, is “just about done awarding our scholarships” for the term. “It’s been an endless cycle because we’ve given out so much this year, which is so exciting,” she said.

Answering a question Trustee Alicia Morales had raised at the August meeting, Quinn said the dollar figure represents 1,092 individual scholarships awarded so far this year. Last year, between fall and spring combined, the number was 1,128.

“So we’re almost to where we were the entire year last year,” she said.

The foundation board met Tuesday and reviewed its investments, Quinn said. “They voted to allocate $3 million across all of our endowments. So that money goes to the principal balances. So when we allocate the interest for the scholarships every year, the principal balances are a higher amount.”

The foundation’s endowments total about $33 million, she said.

Quinn said the foundation also awards scholarships to students who have already graduated and transferred, and that much of the coordinator’s current work involves sending funds to the institutions those graduates attend. Spring scholarship applications open Oct. 15, and the foundation intends to reopen awards that went unused in the fall.

Grants and Events

Quinn reported that the college received the TRIO Educational Talent Search grant — “$500,000 a year annually for five years,” she said — through the U.S. Department of Education. Morales asked her to confirm it was federal rather than state funding, and Quinn did.

“What’s the most exciting thing about it is it’s doubled the amount that they received previously,” Quinn said. “For fear that we may not receive that, we got double the amount of money, and that will support high school as well as middle school, which they’ll be expanding to.”

The grant was assembled by the foundation’s grants team working with Dr. Karl Brooks’s division. Quinn said the college is also in the second year of a Department of Education Student Support Services grant.

Quinn opened her report with what she called a full-circle story, noting that she had been writing a letter for the foundation’s November magazine about retirees. “My psychology teacher left us in her will and left $4 million,” she said.

She also described the foundation’s first retiree luncheon, held the morning of the board meeting, and read from a scholarship recipient’s thank-you letter to a retired philosophy instructor who funds several scholarships. The recipient, a mother of four, wrote that she hopes to return to the college’s English and World Languages Department to teach.

“Every dollar received is a precious gift that brings my goals a little closer to reality,” Quinn read.

Quinn promoted the JJC 5K run/walk on Sunday, Oct. 4, which raises scholarship money and includes a one-mile children’s race, and said the foundation’s September alumni podcast features Michael Mutterer of Silver Cross Hospital, recipient of the foundation’s distinguished alumni achievement award.

The foundation report was presented as item 1.6.5 and required no board action.