WS Chronicle

David Bishop has a heart for helping children, because someone helped him growing up. That was the major motivation for him to start the David Bishop Scholarship.

Bishop, in partnership with Doug Middleton and the Dream the Impossible Initiative, gave five local senior students $500 scholarships to assist with their transition to college.

Bishop is a teacher at Quality Education Academy (QEA), so he has seen up close the needs some students and their families have as they move on to the collegiate level. “I’m a teacher at QEA, so I understand the impact that COVID had on families and the senior students at the school,” said Bishop. 

“I’ve always wanted to give back. When I was a senior in high school at Winston-Salem Prep, it was a middle school teacher that had a scholarship for two seniors, kind of similar to mine, and it was a $100 scholarship, a gift card to Walmart. She actually never taught me, but she spoke highly of me and that has resonated with me since then. When I started teaching again, we were actually co-workers at Winston-Salem Prep, so I wanted to do for others exactly what she had done for me.”

Getting started with a scholarship was a mystery for Bishop, so he reached out to Middleton, who has been a friend of his since the third grade.  

“I wanted to reach out to Doug because I didn’t know if I had to have a nonprofit organization or if I had to have a corporation to do what I wanted to do,” he said.  

Due to Middleton having a nonprofit organization of his own, he was able to give Bishop tips as to how to get started with his idea. Middleton liked the idea that Bishop had and chose to partner Dream the Impossible with Bishop’s mission.

Bishop says it was important for him to give a child of color the opportunity to obtain the scholarships. He said he also wanted to make sure the child was a student in Forsyth County. He reached out to several high school guidance counselors to try and find students that fit the criteria.

“It was a good amount of students that applied for the scholarship,” Bishop stated. “We had one student from North Forsyth, three from QEA and one from Winston-Salem Prep. Like I said earlier, that opportunity that was given to me while I was in high school has always stuck with me, so I always wanted to find a way to give back.

“I have been blessed this year, so I just wanted to give that blessing to the youth. Doug is a big mental health awareness advocate after his best friend died and I am all about youth and making sure they have some type of guidance, because it’s a lot of kids out there without a father figure. I just love what I do.”

Bishop is a member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity and says the response from his frat brothers and others in the community to help for next year has been very encouraging. He says he was surprised by the outpouring of support.

For Bishop, he plans to make this scholarship an annual event for seniors in Forsyth County. He stated that he has seen people with the resources to help students in the county, but choose not to. Because he is an educator, Bishop is on the front lines trying to affect change in the classroom and the scholarship is just another way for him to further help students in need. He hopes his efforts inspire others to do the same, but if not, he will continue to do his part.

“I’m in the field, so I understand the impact that this has,” he said. “Whatever I do, if people decide to follow, then that’s more kids being reached and I hope that does happen and open up doors for other kids with opportunities, but that was not my goal. My goal was just to reach as many kids as I could out of my pocket.

“With this blessing we received from other people and people wanting to partner up and donate for next year, I’m definitely happy with that. If that’s going to open up doors for other people to start up things that have those resources, I am all for that and maybe we can partner up, so we can do more things.”

The kids were excited to be the recipients of the scholarships, Bishop said. He and Middleton gave all of the kids encouraging words prior to them heading off to college. 

Bishop would also like to expand the scholarship to reach more kids with more money. He just wants to continue to grow to help more children. 

“It takes a village to reach these kids. If anyone wants to do something in the community to give back, I’m all for it.”