Our Mission
The Henry David Thoreau Foundation encourages highly talented and academically successful young women and men to pursue undergraduate studies preparing them for leadership in advancing global health by protecting the environment and ensuring equitable and sustainable use of the world's natural resources.

About the Foundation
A catalyst to action:
It is critical to foster future environmental leaders. The clean-up of waterways, the regulation of toxic pollutants, the protection of species on the verge of extinction and the advent of recycling - each are advances made by dedicated and creative people, charging to repair our degraded environment. But to match every environmental advance there is often more than one new dilemma born. Problems connected with climate change, habitat destruction, biodiversity loss and the consumption of fossil fuels are just a few of the threats growing on our planet and in our lives.

The Henry David Thoreau Foundation provides tuition assistance to outstanding Massachusetts high school graduates who demonstrate strong interest in environmental fields of study and clear potential for leadership. To date, close to 100 Henry David Thoreau Scholars have received undergraduate tuition scholarships. The Thoreau Foundation has also awarded nearly a million dollars to undergraduate professors conducting student-based research and field studies around the world.

Students who seek to examine their chosen field of interest through an environmental lens are encouraged to apply for this highly competitive scholarship. Those accepted as Henry David Thoreau Scholars will receive up to $7,500 per year for undergraduate tuition. In addition, these students will be eligible for a $1,000 stipend for an environmental internship, which usually takes place between the Scholar's junior and senior year.

Henry David Thoreau
Massachusetts' own Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), a writer, philosopher, and naturalist, ranks among the very first Americans who sounded the call for environmental preservation. An early nature writer, he focused intently on his outdoor surroundings near his hometown of Concord. Graduating from Harvard College in 1837, he briefly pursued a teaching career. Shortly thereafter, he occupied a hut near Walden Pond, where he lived, worked, and observed nature. His sojourn at Walden lasted a little more than two years. He was not fully appreciated during his lifetime and saw only two of his books printed, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers and Walden, or Life in the Woods. Now, his name is synonymous with the necessity for preserving our rapidly vanishing natural environment. Like our Scholars, Thoreau seemed to be ahead of his time, viewing the world with intense curiosity and calling for the connection between humans and nature. For additional information: www.walden.org, www.mass.gov/dcr/parks/northeast/wldn.htm.