BSP Scholarships
ABOUT
BSP Scholarships provide financial support to SEIU-USWW members and the children of property service workers to obtain a higher education.
With the rising cost of education and diminishing public funding, college scholarships have become even more critical.
Each day and night, property service workers strive to keep commercial offices and airports clean and safe. Nearly all of the children of property service workers are first-generation college students.
The majority dream of their children attending college or attending college themselves, but unfortunately, the combination of their low wages and the increasing cost of tuition prevents many from providing the financial support needed for their children to attend college.
BSP offers scholarships to provide workers and their families with a path to a higher education.
Types of scholarships include:
The Mike Garcia Scholarship:
Building Skills Partnership established the Mike Garcia Scholarship to honor the former SEIU-USWW President and advocate’s legacy and vision in 2008. The scholarship is available to students of all majors.
Mike Garcia was born in April of 1951 in East Los Angeles. As a student at Cal State Northridge, Mike worked his way through college as a janitor, a key experience that would come to shape his life and passion as a fierce advocate for working families.
Mike served as the president of SEIU-USWW between 1988 and 2014, where he led 40,000 janitors, security officers, and airport workers in the Justice for Janitors campaign, a movement that helped workers achieve a more just way of living and working.
Martha Cox-Nitikman Memorial Scholarship:
For over three decades, Martha Cox-Nitikman worked as a tireless advocate as the Vice President of Public Policy for the Building Owners and Managers Association - Greater Los Angeles (BOMA-GLA).
Martha is remembered for her deep knowledge of industry issues and for her unrelenting approach to solving public challenges.
Martha also served as a founding board member of BSP from 2007 to 2019, and was instrumental in advocating for the expansion of its programs throughout California.
She was a champion of BSP and demonstrated an unwavering commitment to improving opportunities for working families to succeed in their careers and educational endeavors.
The Martha-Cox Nitikman Memorial Scholarship was founded in 2023 to benefit low-income college students who are majoring in public policy, proudly continuing Martha's devotion to community service.
To learn more about the program, contact your local BSP representative.