NILES — Three new awards to recognize and celebrate alumni are coming to Brandywine Community Schools, and the committee behind them is seeking nominees.

The Distinguished Alumni Award Committee of the district’s improvement fund development board will give a professional accomplishment award, a community service award and a young alumni award (for those from the Class of 2004 upward) to three different Brandywine graduates. They will be presented during a ceremony and dinner around the time of the Class of 2020’s graduation May 31.

Those wishing to nominate must pick up an application at Brandywine administration building, 1830 S. Third St., email distinguished@brandywinebobcats.org or call (269) 313-0013 by Jan. 15.

Those nominating will then fill out basic information, state why the nominee deserves the award sought and list the nominee’s volunteer work, community involvements, professional accomplishments and recognition. Supporting documents, such as work samples, can be added.

Then, a nominee can email the application back to distinguished@brandywinebobcats.org or mail or drop it off at the Brandywine office.

The award committee will read each nomination, then reach out to those the nominees work with or help to get a better understanding of each person.

After that, nominations will be sent out to the recipients, said Becky Clarke Foster, Class of 1978 and committee chair.

“There are all these people who have went to this small school who have done pretty cool things we all don’t realize,” Clarke Foster said.

Finding and recognizing those people, she said, was the impetus behind the fund development board launching the awards and their corresponding banquet.

The distinguished alumni awards are part of a larger plan launched by the board in late August 2018.

Its athletic hall of fame plan, which had its inaugural class in 2019, was part of it. The third part of the original plan, an alumni magazine, was dropped, Clarke Foster said.

The grand plan’s goals were three-fold. First, to better connect Brandywine alumni to their former school system. Second, to recognize movers and shakers who have a Brandywine diploma. Third, to encourage alumni to give back to their alma mater whether though a monetary donation, helping students find a future career or by attending a Brandywine event.

Once the two forms of awards and their receptions begin to run smoothly, the fund development board will turn their primary focus back to raising money to district projects, from class trips to extracurricular projects to equipment upgrades.

Clarke Foster hopes the alumni awards, sports or otherwise, not only get alumni excited about Brandywine but future alumni, too.

“You hear about movie star-type people, but awards like this are really about people doing amazing things that people don’t necessarily know about,” Clark Foster said. “It’s fun to bring that quality out. To say, ‘Look at this person who went to this institution that I went to, and they’re doing amazing things.’”

Clarke Foster brings experiences fit for an alumni award program to her position as chair. She worked for a similar committee through her collegiate alma mater, Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts.

As an academic advisor for St. Mary’s College and, later, Lake Michigan College, she helped students prepare for their post-college careers.

Clarke Foster said she was drawn back to Brandywine schools by a simple love for them.

Through the distinguished alumni awards, she hopes many others will feel the same.