Mars Hill University Receives Funds from Whitehead Foundation

September 1, 2017

The Lettie Pate Whitehead Foundation of Atlanta, Georgia, has awarded Mars Hill University $160,000 for scholarships for women students. The grant continues a 63-year relationship between Mars Hill and the foundation, with the first gift coming in 1954. In 2004 Mars Hill honored the Lettie Pate Whitehead Foundation as its “Foundation of the Year.”

Conkey Pate Whitehead created the Lettie Pate Whitehead Foundation in 1946 as a memorial to his mother, who had been a strong supporter of education. Mrs. Whitehead was the wife of one of the founders of the Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Atlanta. The Whiteheads became business, church, and civic leaders, and Mrs. Whitehead took over and grew the family’s portfolio of businesses and real estate following her husband’s death in 1906.

The foundation primarily serves to provide financial aid to Christian, female students who reside in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, or Virginia. The foundation says more than 10,000 women each year receive assistance from its scholarship program at more than 200 colleges and universities.