The Park Jimin Scholarship For Dance

The Freedom Scholarship Fund

Roseann Giannone, Director

The Freedom Scholarship Fund

The Freedom Scholarship Fund was established in September of 2018 in memory of the late singer George Michael. After he passed, the public found out about the millions of dollars he donated in silence to numerous charitable organizations (and individuals) without asking for accolades or praise. I wanted to do something to not only honor him but continue his acts of kindness. For these reasons I created The Freedom Scholarship Fund.

To date our volunteer staff have raised $24,000.00 to provide financial aid for deserving students in the areas of music, art, literacy, suicide prevention, hunger and LGBTQ+ youth safe houses. Our committee meets several times throughout the year to review deserving organizations to benefit from this fund. Since George supported many different charitable organizations in his lifetime so we feel no deserving cause should be eliminated from consideration.

How BTS became part of the Scholarship Fund?

I am always searching for worthwhile organizations for the scholarship fund to support and I came across BTS and their amazing generosity to charitable causes. I decided to do some research to learn more about BTS and see what causes they supported and why. The more research I did the more invested in these young men I became and loved what they stood for. As a mother and grandmother, my heart went out to their difficult rise to fame. I had a discussion with the other members of my volunteer staff and we decided that we would support BTS by raising donations for causes that are near and dear to their hearts.

The seven member group consisting of Kim Namjoon (known as RM), Kim Seokjin (known as Jin), Jung Hoseok (known as Jhope), Min Yoongi (known as Suga), Kim Taehyung (known as V), Park Jimin (known as Jimin) and Jeon Jung-kook (known as JK) each have expressed an interest in supporting various organizations and collectively have donated millions of dollars to charity. Their largest commitment is to UNICEF and the BTS #lovemyself #endviolence campaign. This commitment continues daily with contributions from the members themselves, album sales, BTS merchandise, as well as other BTS-related activities.

So in the spirit of giving, and to honor what George Michael did his entire career, we wanted to honor the seven members by making donations to causes that we felt were fitting for each of them.

To date, The Freedom Scholarship Fund has given donations to:

$ 0

The Trevor Project

in honor of member Min Yoongi (known as Suga) for speaking his truth about his suicide attempt.

$ 0

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library

in honor of member Kim Namjoon (known as RM) for his love of books.

$ 0

CMDE

in honor of member Park Jimin (known as Jimin) for his love of dance. Jimin is a classically trained dancer.

When we announced giving a donation to start the Park Jimin Scholarship For Dance to The Center For Dance Education, BTS fans expresses an interest in donating to the school in order to keep the scholarship in Jimin’s honor going from year to year. We are thrilled to say that BTS fans (known as their ARMY) can come to this page and donate additional funds to the school that will be set aside for Jimin’s upcoming scholarship in 2023.

The scholarship will afford one male student the opportunity to receive dance instruction at the school free of charge.
We believe that Jimin would be so pleased with our decision to establish this scholarship.

For more information about The Freedom Scholarship Fund and our charity campaigns for BTS please log onto our website at www.freedomscholarship.org

Learn more about scholarships offered by CMDE.