(Los Angeles, California) A four-year scholarship for LGBT students will be named for Lawrence King, the 15-year-old gay male murdered in an Oxnard, California classroom in February 2008.

“It is an honor to create a scholarship in the name of a young man who, from what I’ve read, showed so much promise and was a light for many around him,” said Jorge Valencia, Executive Director & CEO of Point Foundation. 

Point Foundation is the nation’s largest scholarship-granting organization for LGBT students of merit. It provides financial support, leadership training and mentoring to students who are marginalized because of their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. 

Point provides its scholars with the financial ability to attend the nation’s foremost higher educational institutions.

“JFC’s involvement with the Point Foundation stemmed directly from the senseless murder of Lawrence. The Lawrence King/Jeffrey Fashion Cares Point Scholarship was set up to ensure that this young man’s memory and the crime would not be forgotten,” said Dan Rothmann, co-chair of JFC events.

“We hope that this scholarship raises awareness of the daily discrimination faced by our LGBT youths in our nation’s schools,” added Co-chair Todd Sears.

Jeffrey Fashion Cares is one of the nation’s most unique annual events – supporting 4 organizations and raising millions of dollars. Ninety percent of the money raised goes directly to the non profits who impact LGBT and HIV issues. The organizations are Lambda Legal, GMHC, Hetrick-Martin Institute, and Point Foundation. 

A fellow student, Brandon McInerney, has been charged with murder and will be tried as an adult.

King often dressed in a feminine manner and told friends that he was gay. Twenty horrified students were in the classroom at the time of the shooting.

The teen was rushed to hospital. He died after doctors declared him brain dead and his mother agreed to have life-support removed.