Dr. Irving A. Fradkin, says Humorist (and former teacher) Sam Levenson. is ''an optometrist with vision." His vision is of a community-supported college-scholarship loan plan, and the idea has spread within three years from the New England textile city of Fall River. Mass., to about 50 small towns in eleven states scattered from Rhode Island to Kansas and from Minnesota to Louisiana.
Fradkin got his inspiration through defeat; in 1957, running on a platform that called for a scholarship plan of some sort, he lost an election for membership on the Fall River school committee. His dander up, Fradkin began collaring patients, hounding civic groups, beleaguering storekeepers and factory workers for support for his scheme. A $1 contribution entitled individuals to a membership card in the Citizens' Scholarship Foundation, and civic organizations that gave $100 got the privilege of naming the scholarship and presenting it in public.
The Grass Roots Grow. Though Fall River citizens have reason to envy a good education—only 3% are college graduates, and almost 40% never finished grammar school—Fradkin at first doubted that many could spare even $1. The average annual salary in the town, a once flourishing cotton manufacturing center, was $3,000. But in the first year he raised $4,500 to finance 24 scholarships.
Winning applicants, chosen by a panel of local citizens, were rated by a simple point system: financial need, 55; school standing, 35; leadership qualities, 5; self-employment, 5. Loans ranged from $100 to $1,000, were made repayable whenever the recipient could raise the money, creating a revolving fund to finance more scholarships. "Our program." said Fradkin last week, "aims to give scholarship money to more students instead of having the top students walk off with all the awards."
Nose to Nose. Quickly, the Fall River Plan spread to nearby towns. Teenagers, backed by parents, staged pop concerts, cake sales, manned sidewalk booths, highway "toll stations,'' ran a dress shop. Fradkin meanwhile pushed his plan by letter, phone, or nose-to-nose persuasion, got more inquiries than he could handle. Last year he organized the communities with do-it-yourself scholarship plans into the loosely knit Citizens' Scholarship Foundation of America, Inc., charged a $50 chartering fee to pay for a rented typewriter, phone bills, and the salary of the sole employee of the foundation, a housewife and part-time executive secretary. Fradkin naturally became president, and Levenson. who knew Fradkin only by letter, agreed to be honorary president.
Last week, adding up the balance sheet of the enterprise at the close of the graduation season, Fradkin reported that 400 scholarships had been granted by local communities out of a total collection of between $100,000 and $125,000. Sighed starry-eyed Optometrist Fradkin: "If we can do what we have done with no money, what could we do with money?"