About Us

Our Board of Directors

Julie Gurkowski-Koehn, President

Tom McCarthy, Vice President

Terri Mauel, Secretary

Kara Felcan, Treasurer

Steve Arps

Jamie Bartol

Nick Bartol

Carrie Blazel

Betsy Bruce

Jason Buttke

Angie Femali

Kelly Schmitz

Mike Shattuck

Our History

The Berlin Community Scholarship Corporation (BCSC) was founded by Sue Yankowski, a local Berlin business owner who was also an active school board member. In 1983 she happened to be reading a Wisconsin School Board Association newsletter when she came across a one-paragraph item about a new community scholarship corporation in Baraboo, Wisconsin. That five-sentence paragraph sparked an idea. She wondered why couldn’t Berlin do the same thing. The concept was simple: solicit memberships from community members, encourage additional donations, and pool the money into one large investment fund. The cost to individuals would be minimal, but the combined amount would eventually generate scholarships for local students.

Never one to sit on a good idea, Sue organized a steering committee to lay the framework for BCSC, which formally organized with Berlin School Board approval in April, 1984. Part of that framework included awarding scholarships, not just to graduating high school seniors, but also to college students to help enable them to complete their educations. Sue Yankowski retired from the BCSC Board of Directors in 2001 after serving as its president for seventeen years. In 1985 the first four BCSC scholarships were awarded. Thanks to donations from individuals, businesses, and estates BCSC continues to grow and provide many scholarships to area graduating seniors and college students annually.

Contact Us

Have questions? Interested in helping? Send us an email at info@berlinscholars.org.