The Hubbell Awards is a registered charity whose objective is to provide scholarships to all youth enrolled in a sea, army or air cadet unit based in Manitoba.
They are named after Major Ted Hubbell, a World War II veteran who devoted much of his life encouraging the development of youth. He was the President of the United Services Institute of Manitoba when he died in 1967.
His colleagues made the decision to honour the work he had been doing by presenting three scholarships annually in his memory.
Back in 1967 the three scholarships each had a value of $100.00. That amount remained unchanged for more than thirty-five years until the Winnipeg Airports Authority agreed to support the program and donated an additional $400.00 for each award.
The support from the Winnipeg Airports Authority was wonderful and very much appreciated, but it seemed unreasonable to ask them to continue to provide most of the funds.
In 2005 a small group of concerned Manitobans made the decision to make the program self sufficient. They incorporated as a charity to encourage donations with the objective of using only the interest earned from donations to support the scholarships.
The Winnipeg Foundation has a program that is specifically designed to assist small charities. Soon after incorporation the volunteer Board entered into an Agreement with them. All donations are deposited in the Hubbell Awards Scholarship Trust Fund that they hold. Once each year the Foundation informs the Board of its spending limit for the next year. That information is used to determine the amount of the three scholarships.
Because only the earned interest is used for the scholarships, the Hubbell Awards will be available to cadets for many, many, many years.
For the first few years, the earned interest was not sufficient to provide three $750.00 scholarships which are presented at a formal fund raising dinner. Some of the proceeds from the dinners was used to make up the difference.
In 2009 the Hubbell Awards reached an important milestone. The Fund had increased in value so that only the interest earned in the Hubbell Awards Scholarship Trust Fund was used for the scholarships.
Beginning in 2010, the value of each scholarship will be increased to $1,000.00.