TORONTO, Ont. — The OTA Education Foundation is extending the deadline on its current donation drive to July 29, so that it can award as many scholarships as possible to children of parents who work in the trucking industry, the group announced. While its 100 Donations in 100 Days fundraising campaign ended last week under target, Foundation chairman Scott Smith says he is optimistic that the extension will encourage more companies to support their industry’s foundation.

“The quality of the applications that are coming in this year, like previous years, is outstanding,” noted Smith. “Many companies are finally emerging from some tough economic challenges, and we hope that the deadline extension will encourage them to support this very unique, industry-specific scholarship program.”

Smith says the 2011 campaign, which targeted a specific number of donors as opposed to individual or aggregate donation amounts, was developed with the prevailing economic climate in mind.

“The general idea is to generate lots of manageable donations,” Smith said. “The average donation this year is around $700. If we had even a third of industry companies each contributing between $500 and $700, we would easily be able to meet our fundraising and scholarship disbursement goals.”

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