Huntington Bank and The Arab American News awarded 31 college-bound Dearborn and Dearborn Heights graduating seniors $115,000 in scholarships at the Future Leaders In Progress (FLIP) Scholarship Dinner on Wednesday, May 22. 

FLIP also recognized five outstanding educators from Dearborn Public Schools and Crestwood Public Schools in Dearborn Heights with $1,000 grants in appreciation for their educational efforts.

Award recipients and their families enjoyed dinner with sponsors, elected officials, community leaders, FLIP leaders, superintendents and educators from the Dearborn and Crestwood School Districts at the Summit Banquet Center in Dearborn. About 300 guests attended the ceremony.

“All the students you see and meet today are a product of public schools,” Mistress of ceremonies Former Deputy Michigan Attorney General Fadwa Hammoud said. “As an immigrant, public education showed me that it doesn’t matter where you start, education can take you anywhere. I know that is true for many of the students being awarded today. You give us hope. We depend on you. We believe in you.”

Hammoud expressed her thanks for The Arab American News Publisher Osama Siblani’s four decades of continuous service to the community. She said that he has proven he is a “real father” to this community through his support of successive generations of Arab Americans, expressing her feeling of  pride and humility to be one of the people who benefited from his support and care throughout the years, and this meant and still means a lot to her.

FLIP gave 11 students $1,000 each; seven students received $2,500 each; nine students received $5,000 each and three students earned $10,000 scholarships each, as well as one student who received a full ride to Henry Ford College.

Siblani, Huntington Bank Chairman Gary Torgow and Huntington executive Katarina Flathau worked with Dearborn Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Glenn Maleyko, Crestwood School District Superintendent Dr. Youssef Mosallam and school administrators Adam Martin and Fatme Faraj to decide on recipients out of more than 168 applicants and to organize the celebratory dinner.

FLIP 2024 raised and gave $40,000 more in scholarships than it did during its first year in 2022. FLIP honored 20 graduates in 2022 with $75,000 total in scholarships. In 2023 FLIP increased its scholarships to 26 recipients for a total of $102,000.  This year, local business joined FLIP’s efforts by sponsoring some of its scholarships. Metrotech Automotive Group, LGC Global, Bacall Development, Dearborn Cardiology Center and the MLAC Foundation sponsorships helped in growing the program.

“This is the most rewarding thing I have done in my life of 40 years of public service,” Siblani said. “As we grow older, we get distracted and distant from our children and we really don’t know what they are doing and what their life is like as they grow up. These three years of the FLIP experience, every time we did our interviews with selected students, I cried because we see the humanity in these children. We see what they are deprived of, and that is why FLIP is there to provide them with help to be successful in the future.”

He pointed out that the FLIP scholarship program is distinguished from other scholarship programs in that it targets students with GPA of 2.5 and take into consideration that sometimes a family’s financial or hard life circumstances hinder the students from achieving academic excellence, and they need the extra push to get them through these difficulties. That’s what FLIP is all about.

Siblani also described how he failed to control his emotions as he looked at some sad stories in which students were struggling to overcome difficult ordeals. But with their strong wills and the help of their teachers and superintendents in the Dearborn and Crestwood School Districts and with what FLIP had to offer, they could have the support to succeed and strive academically and secure a better future for themselves.

Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud spoke during the dinner and said the scholarship is an opportunity to connect with and honor students on a personal level and uplift America’s future leaders.

“The story I have, the reason I stand before this microphone is not because I was a shining star who had an easy, cookie-cutter pathway, but rather because of the sacrifices of my parents and grandparents, who decided to embark on a journey to start fresh in a new country to try and give their kids and grandkids a better future,” he said. “That’s why we’re all here tonight: To ensure that this generation that’s up and coming has far greater opportunities than what we ever had. What we aspire for them is not to be the mayors of Dearborn, but to be the governors of the state of Michigan and the presidents of these United States of America.”

Torgow said someone told him he and Siblani make an unlikely partnership, and he responded that good deeds have no bounds.

“When you’re doing really good things and you are doing them together, you can create your own world from a partnership,” Torgow said. “The more partnerships that we can create in this room, the more work we can do to unify our communities and the more we create a loving relationship with the diverse community, the better our world is going to be. We can influence the things that are happening thousands of miles away with this kind of partnership.”

Torgow considered the FLIP scholarship program a sustainable investment in the Dearborn area in which he has “now many friends”, stressing that investing in youth is the best and most rewarding. He also expressed his gratitude that he was invited and welcomed to many activities in the Arab American community in the last few years.

“Thank you for your affection, friendship and welcoming me in your community,” Torgow told the crowd.

He also said that Huntington Bank’s support of this scholarship program is a modest contribution for these students, who deserve full financial and moral support while continuing their academic education. He expressed his confidence that many of them will be effective leaders in the future.