DELVARDO EMMANUEL
Journal Staff Writer

A special education luncheon was held at the Wild Thyme restaurant on East Bay Street, to
celebrate the accomplishments of former Governor General H.E. Cornelius Smith in supporting
the educational pursuits of Bahamians in the areas of agriculture, climate change and hospitality.
The C.A Smith International Educational and Community Development Scholarship Foundation
assisted with the event. Launched in July 2020, the foundation provides financial assistance in
the form of grants to deserving Bahamian students attending tertiary education at an accredited
college/university locally or abroad.
Managing Director and Secretary of the William F. Pickard Foundation Carl Bell explained the
significance of the program.
“Cornelius A. Smith, William F. Picard, Alliance and Friendship Scholarship actually focuses on
students out of the Michigan area and The Bahamas that will be entering college at FAMU
University,” Bell said.
Mr. Bell asserted that thus far, with scholarships and other perks associated with this scholarship,
they have been spent about $500,000.
“Scholarship covers the full tuition of any student enrolling under this program. The objective is
to get four students per year from each of those geographies, four from The Bahamas and four
from Michigan and have them create that same friendship and alliance that Dr. Picard and the
former governor general created 50 years ago.”
Several scholarship recipients of the Cornelius A. Smith/William Pickard Friendship and
Alliance Fund were in attendance to share about their journeys. Among them is Hubert
Fernander, an agricultural major concentrating in soil science and plant science, at Florida
Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU) who shared his plans for the future.
“I want to like to eliminate or minimize our food bill as much as I could in The Bahamas,”
Fernander said.
“Making us independent again because according to the book I was reading, the history of
agriculture in The Bahamas, we got the potential to produce our own foods on a large scale and
exporting our goods throughout the world. I want to do on a large scale again and probably
expand it into, AP culture, livestock production, aquaculture and mariculture.”
To qualify for a scholarship, the candidate must be a Bahamian citizen between the ages of 17
and 24; accepted at an accredited college or university; possess at least five or more subjects that
include Math and English at A, B or C level in the BGCSE examination; express a desire to
return to The Bahamas at the completion of his/her course of studies; along with some
agricultural focus.