Scholarship Fund Gets a Big Check for Its 20th Birthday

When the Federal Employee Education & Assistance Fund began 20 years ago, it was a place for federal and postal employees to turn for help when they got behind on their bills or needed a plane ticket to attend to a family crisis. The fund has steadily grown and got a big boost yesterday from the National Treasury Employees Union.

At a breakfast marking the fund's 20th anniversary, NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley announced that the union had given it $726,363. The donation came from administrative funds that had not been spent during a 22-year class-action lawsuit, dubbed the special rates case, brought by the NTEU against the government.

The union donation will create an endowment for five annual scholarships of $5,000 each, she said.

"I have seen the difference that FEEA makes in the lives of federal employees caught up in a disaster or who need help paying for the ever-increasing costs of higher education," Kelley said. "I am thrilled that this new scholarship will help federal families achieve their educational goals."

Donating the leftover funds from the lawsuit "was not a hard decision to make," Kelley said, in part because the union is one of the FEEA's founders.

FEEA describes itself as the only nonprofit organization dedicated solely to helping federal and postal employees. For the past 20 years, the fund has distributed more than $6.5 million in scholarships to federal employees and their dependents and more than $5.5 million in emergency assistance, including $1.8 million to federal families hit hard last year by hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma.

Robert M. Tobias , president of the fund's board of directors, said the nonprofit group was created with the thought that federal employees would help their fellow workers if they had a way to channel their charitable giving. "They have, in extraordinary ways," he said.

Much of FEEA's budget comes from federal employee contributions made through the Combined Federal Campaign, the government's annual charity drive. The fund also receives donations from Geico, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield federal program, and the Wright & Co. insurance firm.

Tobias credited G. Jerry Shaw , then-counsel at the Senior Executives Association, with coming up with the idea to create FEEA in 1986. Shaw, who once worked for the Internal Revenue Service, said he seen too many instances of IRS employees taking up collections in the workplace for a colleague in need. He also thought children of federal families deserved the same kind of scholarship opportunities as some corporations provided to the children of their employees.

Shaw recruited Tobias, then-president of the NTEU; Stephen D. Bauer , then-president of the National Council of Social Security Management Associations; and the late Jim Pierce , then-president of the National Federation of Federal Employees; to join him in founding the organization. Since 1989, Bauer has been executive director of FEEA.

Over the years, FEEA has created special programs to provide emergency grants for families of federal employees killed or injured in the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building and in the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

College scholarships also are being provided to children who lost a parent in the attacks, and that project will continue until the youngest, now 7, has completed her undergraduate education. More than $2 million has been paid out for scholarships, and FEEA estimates that more than 200 children in Oklahoma and about 65 families who lost loved ones on Sept. 11, 2001, will receive the aid.

At yesterday's anniversary celebration, Juan and Veronica Cruz , retired Defense Department employees, paid tribute to FEEA. Juan Cruz was severely injured in the attack on the Pentagon and spent four years undergoing facial reconstruction. FEEA became "like family" during Juan Cruz's recovery, Veronica Cruz said. Their daughter is attending Brown University on a FEEA scholarship.

Stephen Barr's e-mail address isbarrs@washpost.com.