Funding the Future
METCO College Fund of Lexington
For over fifty years the METCO College Scholarship Fund of Lexington (MCSFL) has provided a critical financial boost to generations of Boston graduates of Lexington High School. As METCO, the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity, celebrates its 60th anniversary this year, the Fund is moving forward under new leadership.
“We are so fortunate that Susan Bennett, former Executive Director of the Lexington Historical Society, and longtime MCFSL board member, has taken over the helm,” said Jill Smilow, who stepped down as MCSFL president in June 2025 after moving to western Massachusetts.
“I’m very excited about where we’re heading with the help of the community,” said Smilow, an independent college counselor who continues to serve on the all-volunteer board. She sees her new role as providing continuity and acting as custodian of the organization’s institutional memory.
MCFSL board member and METCO alum Cecil Cox underlined Smilow’s achievements during her tenure as president from 2012 to 2025. “Without Jill’s thought leadership that led to our expanding our offerings, energetic outreach to our donor base and general evangelism for our MCSFL work, we would not have made the impact we’ve had or be as well positioned as we are, heading into the second half of the 2020s,” said Cox, a “semi-retired” Harvard-educated media executive.
Susan Bennett brings “an extraordinary background” to her leadership role at MCFSL, said Smilow. Widely credited with guiding the Lexington Historical Society – now Lexington History Museums – into a new era of professionalism as its first executive director from 2005-2017, following a career in business and law, Bennett earned a master’s degree in archives management and is a member of the Town Historical Commission.
Embedded in the Lexington community for over 30 years, and the mother of three children who attended Lexington Public Schools, Bennett has a deep appreciation of the METCO program’s value to Boston and Lexington students alike. “My involvement with the Fund has been really based on my desire to do something to support social justice at a time in our national lives when there are a lot of challenges in that regard,” she said.
Evolution of a Scholarship Fund – from Kickstart to Completion
Lexington was an early adopter of METCO, a Civil Rights era voluntary busing program to promote better educational opportunities for inner city students while increasing diversity in suburban schools. The first group of students of color to ride the bus from Boston to Lexington arrived in the public schools in 1968.
METCO supporters in town understood that financial support would be crucial to helping Boston graduates of Lexington High School succeed in higher education. In 1969, then School Committee member Elizabeth Clarke founded the METCO College Scholarship Fund of Lexington, which obtained non-profit 501c3 status in 1971.
The Fund’s initial aim was to provide financial assistance to Boston LHS graduates during their freshman year in college, a goal that it met consistently until around 2012. As Susan Bennett recalled, at that point most of the founding volunteers were retiring and leaving town, “the Fund was getting ready to disband, and Jill [Smilow] stepped forward to provide leadership, which was really critical.”
Bennett and her husband John Rosenberg, then the editor of Harvard magazine, were long-term donors to the Fund. When considering whether to increase their involvement and support, they met with Smilow and other board directors to explore the idea of the Fund broadening its goal to offer qualified students scholarships throughout their higher education careers.
When Bennett and Rosenberg joined the board in 2015, their vision, experience and professional expertise brought “new opportunities and new energy of thought,” said Smilow. Once the board took on the challenge of expanding its commitments, “we had to think strategically about broadening our base and do a lot more outreach to local organizations and corporations,” she recalled.
Feedback from scholarship recipients and their families was a key factor behind the decision to expand the Fund’s remit, said Cox, who joined the Board in 2018 as the college completion fund idea was in development.
Born and raised in Dorchester, Cox received a scholarship in his freshman year at Harvard in 1981. “The students seemed to be getting ample money for that freshman year, but after that it was far more challenging to cobble together enough money to make it sustainable,” he said.
Bennett reported that in 2025, the Fund awarded scholarships to 12 freshmen and 19 sophomores through seniors, and that a typical student now receives $10,000 over the course of a college education.
Recognizing that students often face non-academic financial challenges that can derail their college progress, in 2021 the board directors created an emergency fund. “Quite small amounts can be crucial,” Smilow noted, as students face unexpected expenses like dental bills, auto repair for essential transportation to school, or necessary technological updates to keep up with coursework. “Students have increasingly become aware that they can reach out to us if they have emergency needs, and that’s terrific,” said Bennett.
METCO Alumni Fund New “Beautiful Warrior” Scholarship
Mike Mascoll, LHS 1983, is well-known in the METCO community as the maker of two documentary films about the program, On the Line: Where Sacrifice Begins (2016) and CodeSwitching: Race and Identity in the Suburban Schoolhouse (2020). Through making the films, and the proliferation of social media, he has reconnected with many fellow Boston LHS graduates across the country and sees potential for bridge-building among generations and communities.
“We’re at a point now where we have the opportunity to be custodians of the community,” said Mascoll, a cybersecurity consultant, serial entrepreneur, and founder of LEV Media Group. “When I say community,” he clarified, I’m referring to both communities, our Boston and our suburban community.” Forty years out from high school, he sees a responsibility for “connecting the old with the new, the alumni with current students, and sharing that experience.”
Starting with METCO alumni from his own circle of friends, Mascoll drew together a group that formed the basis for the recently-formed Lexington METCO Alumni Collective (LMAC). Mascoll sees the group as a valuable network spanning a wide range of professions and experiences, that current students can tap into for guidance as they weigh different study and career options.
LMAC also raised funds for a new scholarship to be offered in partnership with MCFSL. The “Beautiful Warrior Scholarship” is dedicated to the memory of the late Christopher King, an LHS METCO graduate from the Class of 1984. King had “a beautiful warrior spirit,” and always expected the best from himself and everyone around him, said Mascoll, his close friend through their Lexington years and their time together at Boston College.
“We all know what the challenges are financially and socially, and the limitations that could stall your ability to progress,” said Mascoll. King’s motto was: “Don’t look back, keep moving forward, just get it done, whatever it might be,” and the scholarship will be awarded for the first time at the METCO/LHS dinner in May to a student who shares his commitment to striving for excellence on all fronts, dedication to community, and zest for life.
A New Perspective
The most recent recruit to the MCFSL board is Lurena Hood, a METCO social worker in the Lexington Public Schools and the mother of three students in the program.
“I joined the board because I believe in investing in students’ futures,” said Hood, who lives in Dorchester. Her twin sons are in seventh grade at Diamond Middle School, and her daughter graduated from LHS in 2025 and is now a freshman at Howard University in Washington, D.C.
With her depth of knowledge and experience of the program, Hood is “a tremendous asset who adds wonderful insights to our work,” said Smilow. “I have a strong belief that when students feel supported from different angles, they’ll be more likely to succeed,” said Hood.
As a board director, her current focus is following up with students who are already in college. Often reaching out by text, she reminds them to apply for scholarships for the coming year, encourages them to make use of resources on campus, check in with their advisors about how many credits they need, and ask for any extra help that the Fund might be able to offer.
Hood keeps fellow board members updated on the resources and services that METCO provides to students. A former community social worker, she is helping the board develop new outreach strategies for connecting with their two key communities in Boston and Lexington and stressing to her colleagues the importance of lobbying for METCO funding at the state level.
As a first-generation college student herself, whose family “didn’t know much about the college process,” Hood is committed to connecting METCO students to resources and information that will smooth their paths. “When I look at being part of the scholarship board,” she said, “it really puts into perspective how much I value education, and how much I want students to know that it is achievable, that they can make it.”
To learn more about the work of the METCO College Scholarship Fund for Lexington, see the website:
metcocollegescholarshiplexington.org