Giving to Date

Since starting the Olden Bears Fund during the COVID days, we’ve been able to generate nearly $500K in community contributions/ pledges, including about $400K in direct pledges/ donations from our members and a $100K matching grant.

In 2024,  we provided $92.5K to the Berkeley Hope Scholars Program (with the majority of the funding coming from the Kahn and Mayer family), a 15% increase over the previous year.  We also donated $24K to Cal Basketball transfer Mady Sissoko's Mali Foundation. We sent $15K of a 3 year pledge to the Cal Graduate School of Journalism (spearheaded by one of our members who is a Cal journalism school grad) toward stipends for their students who are limited to unpaid summer internships. Additionally, we gave $15K to the UC Berkeley Men's Basketball Excellence Fund and $2.5K to the Berkeley Law School Fund. 

In 2023, we funded our 2022 pledge of $100K toward scholarships through the Fiat Lux Scholarship program at Cal.  Our pledge received a matching $100K grant from the Haas Family Foundation. Our program targets first-generation college students. 

In 2024, our funding supported our first student and we expect the fund to provide about $7K per year into perpetuity for scholarships.

Our first contributions were to the Alameda County Community Food Bank, Berkeley Food Pantry, Basic Needs, Intercept Poverty. Intercept Poverty is a program founded by Cal football’s Elijah Hicks. We also donated to the fundraising efforts for food purchases at Oakland’s Burckhalter Elementary School, an effort led by Cal football's Marcel Dancy. The Olden Bears also made direct contributions to the Cal Athletic Department as well as the Cameron Institute, providing student-athletes with life skills.