Portland Trusts Announce Scholarship Awards for Portland Students

Two Portland trusts grant funds to three Portland youth for their college education

Portland, Maine - The trustees for the Sylvan B. Phillips Trust and James L. Rackleff Trust, Portland residents Marjorie Shaw, Jisel Lopez and Mary Zwolinski, announced the award recipients for their annual college education scholarships. The trusts, administered by the city, grant awards annually to applicants based upon academic excellence, demonstrated need, letters of reference and an essay by the applicant.

 “Rackleff and Phillips have left a wonderful legacy for Portland’s youth,” stated Mary Zwolinski, Phllips and Rackleff Trusts trustee. “We are delighted to award these funds to such promising young adults for their continuing education.”

The eighty year-old James L. Rackleff Trust Fund awards funds for the education and training of children of legal residents of the City of Portland. This year, the trust awarded $1,700 to Corey Connolly Carmichael currently attending Swathmore College.  Corey was the valedictorian of the 2010 Portland High graduating class, a national merit scholar and community volunteer.

An 1856 graduate of Yale University, Rackleff was the founder of the Cumberland Loan and Building Association. An attorney by trade, he had also served as Government Assessor and Collector of Internal Revenue. The Rackleff Building, a historic structure located at 127-133 Middle Street bears his name. The trust was established shortly after his death in 1928.

The more than sixty year-old Phillips Trust annually awards funds to aid needy and worthy young men living in Portland in obtaining a college education in full or part of their tuition and/or room rent. This year, the Phillips trust distributed $7,940 to two young men, Francis Myatt currently attending St. Joseph’s College of Maine, and Parker Robinson, a Great Diamond Island resident who will be attending Southern Maine Community College in South Portland in the fall.

A Portland philanthropist, Phillips first joined the Union Mutual Life Insurance Company in 1886 and rose through the ranks to become President of the company from 1933 until 1939. Phillips was also a prominent member of the Portland Maine Photographic Section of the L.D.M. Memorial Art Museum. He bequeathed funds to support the continuing education of Portland men which was established as the Sylvan B. Phillips Trust shortly after his death in 1944.