Greetings, hello, and welcome back to year four of the annual René A. Morrell (RAM) Scholarship Fund!

We are enthralled to begin another year of giving. The urgency to unite and aggrandize the arts and arts education is imminent. Our current government has minimized arts funding in a plethora of ways by slashing allocated government funding to school systems, museums, libraries, and arts organizations by the means of haste, greed, and discrimination.

Now it is up to us to use the bricks thrown haphazardly at us to strategically build our own slice of America. In our slice, art prevails.

Founded in 2022, the RAM Scholarship Fund is a giving circle comprised of a diverse blend of present and previous Chicagoland residents. Together, we create and distribute unrestricted use funding to students currently attending the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC).

Named after René Morrell, an African-American artist and SAIC alumna from the South Side of Chicago, the giving circle initially targeted students of the Black Diaspora attending SAIC. Since 2022, we’ve raised over $5,000 in unrestricted funds and awarded six students. Expansion has been on our horizon for quite sometime. With the current climate directed towards cutting art funding, there is no better time to push our limits to further our mission and support the arts.

2023-2025 RAM Scholars (2022 not pictured)

To date, we have surpassed EVERY goal we’ve set. Our goal for the 2025-2026 cycle is to TRIPLE our previous goal and QUADRUPLE the amount of recipients. Last year, we surpassed our $3,500 goal by raising $4,100 in funding and awarded three students. This year our goal is to raise $12,500. We hope to award twelve students this cycle, make this our biggest cycle to date. The breakdown is as follows:

$12,000- (12) $1,000 unrestricted use grants to 12 students.

$400- (8) monthly cash drops on campus. Random envelopes containing $50 will be hidden in campus buildings for one lucky student to find at random throughout the school year.

$100- GoFundMe fees.

In addition to the RAM Fund, the 2025-2026 cycle includes three new funding categories:

General Need Fund: open to ALL SAIC students. Awards (3) students unrestricted funding based on their financial circumstances.

International Need Fund: open to ALL SAIC INTERNATIONAL students. Awards (3) students unrestricted funding based on their financial circumstances.

Legacy Fund: exclusive to students in a specific department to honor the legacy of an SAIC alumni. Honoree and department will be announced in September 2025 (or sooner).

The RAM Fund will remain exclusive to students of the Black Diaspora attending SAIC, awarding (3) students unrestricted funding.

Earlier this year, we attended an artist talk featuring Robert Earle Paige, a native Chicagoan, textile artist, and educator. Paige briefly spoke on the importance of diversity in communal support and its relevance to revolutionary collectives such as the Black Panther Party and AfriCOBRA. Through AfriCOBRA, Paige and other artists of the Black Diaspora sought to uplift Black visual art by the means of aesthetics, positive identity, and accessibility. Paige emphasized the notion of collective action. Although AfriCOBRA’s mission was aimed towards the Black Diaspora, their social responsibility was to create allyship with other oppressed groups. Why? Because all oppression is connected.

Now is the time to join forces and create the change we wish to see while directing and exemplifying how we we wish to be treated. No obstacle is bigger than the PEOPLE.

Thank you for your past, present, and future support.