Wayne Meisel Profile

Mr. Wayne Meisel is the President of The Corella and Bertram F. Bonner Foundation, which supports scholarships for low-income students at 22 schools in the Southeast and Midwest through the Bonner Scholars Program. In return, each scholarship recipient performs 600 hours of community service a year.

Mr. Meisel graduated cum laude with a B.A. in government from Harvard University. He was a John Harvard Scholar for the highest academic achievement and was a awarded a John Finley Travelling Fellow. With this fellowship Mr. Meisel walked from Maine to Washington to champion student and campus involvement in community service.

As founder of the internationally known Campus Outreach Opportunity League (COOL), Mr. Meisel created a platform for students and graduates to lead, sustain and challenge their peers to serve others and bring about positive change.

Working with COOL from 1983 to 1989, he set the tone for youth-run/youth-led organizations. His efforts brought about coalitions between and among individuals, campuses, local communities and all levels of government that today are actively engaged in program conduct and policy implementation.

For his activism and leadership Mr. Meisel is the recipient of a Lyndhurst Career Prize, an award given out by the Lyndhurst Foundation of Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Mr. Meisel has served on the National Boards of Directors of the Independent Sector, COOL, and The New Grange School, a nationally acclaimed school for youths with learning disabilities. He was also a founding board member of the President's Commission on National and Community Service and Teach for America.

He is the author of two books, "Building a Movement: Students in Community Service" and "On Your Mark, Get Set, Go: From Student Ideas to Campus Action." He has also edited two books of quotes: "Men About Men" and "Light One Candle."

Send email to Wayne Meisel at WMeisel@bonner.org.