The Michigan Tech Canadian Foundation was incorporated in Toronto, Canada in 1961. It was started with money from a bequest from John Edgar McAllister, a 1896 graduate of the Michigan Mining School (now Michigan Technological University) in Houghton, Michigan. A native of Canada, McAllister recognized that his education provided independence, so he helped many students to attend Michigan Tech and gain that edge in life. He himself needed scholarships to get his education. His first job, in the Texas panhandle, saw him and his wife living in a tent for a year. Later in his career, the Depression hit him and his mining consultant business hard. But once his business was established, he did something of great worth-he put the bulk of his estate into a perpetual trust to support students at the University of Toronto and at Michigan Tech, his two alma maters. In helping more than three hundred Canadians attend Michigan Tech since 1958, McAllister asked of these scholarship recipients only one thing-that, when their circumstances permitted, they in turn help others (excerpted from http://www.mtf.mtu.edu/features/rpt04/mcallister.php, accessed November 2010).