The Philip E. and Carole R. Ratcliffe Foundation, which donated more than $1 million to AACC over 10 years, moved to Annapolis in June.

Carole Ratcliffe passed away in November, and because her house in Florida was the official headquarters, the 16-year-old foundation needed a new location.

Carlene Cassidy, chair of AACC’s Entrepreneurial Studies Institute, will take over as the foundation’s full-time CEO in January. She said because some of the foundation’s trustees live in Baltimore and Annapolis “it made sense to move somewhere local.”

The organization donates about $4 million to 12 academic institutions, but made its first commitment to AACC in 2003, according to Cassidy.

“At the time, that was the single largest gift to Anne Arundel Community College,” she said.

The Ratcliffe Foundation supports a scholarship for aspiring entrepreneurs that pays for tuition and textbooks for 50 students each year, with a lifetime limit of $12,000 per person.

The foundation also supports an ESI business pitch competition every spring, giving students the chance to earn funding to start or grow their businesses.

“The money that they granted me has tremendously helped me out a lot,” Noah Davis, a third-year entrepreneurship and marketing and advertising student, said about winning the Ratcliffe Scholarship,
“because it does not only go toward my education, but also goes toward my personal financial needs.”

“There’s so much to say about the Ratcliffe Foundation,” Martha LeDoux, a sixth-year event planning and catering management student who also won the Ratcliffe Scholarship, said. “It’s amazing; their generosity is absolutely incredible.”

The deadline to submit an application for the Ratcliffe Scholarship is Oct. 31. To qualify, a student should have a GPA of 2.5 or higher and be a U.S. citizen.