it as a way to help replenish the New York nonprofit that had promised to support their studies.

“It sort of expanded into a real grass-roots effort where myself and I’d say about 100 of my fellow scholars decided to put our all into this effort,” says Wilson, who is studying industrial engineering.

Christine McKelvey, the president of the 10-year-old McKelvey Foundation, says the organization’s finances began to crumble when her father and the foundation’s sole benefactor, Andrew McKelvey, died in 2008. She says she believed his estate would continue to support the entrepreneurs’ scholarships, as well as another 327 scholars in a separate program for students who are the first in their families to attend college.

But probate has been complicated. McKelvey, who founded Monster.com, was married six times. Christine McKelvey says she doesn’t know when or if the scholarships will be restored.

The Chase contest was a good fit for Wilson and the other scholars. They are the sorts of people who were born for entrepreneurial ventures. Wilson launched a lemonade stand in sixth grade — a version 2.0 lemonade stand.

“He didn’t want to do a regular lemonade stand,” says Susan Wilson, Bryce’s mom and an English teacher at Homestead High School in Cupertino. “So, he talked me into getting the ingredients for Italian sodas and he set his stand up nearby, at the middle school graduation.”

His sophomore year, he started Vandelay Industries, an electronics components supplier named after a business on “Seinfeld.” And now he’s working on another startup, an e-commerce site that will offer ingredients for international cuisine.

Though everyone took a big hit when the scholarships fell through, the students were especially worried about those like Jordan Wathen. Wathen started at the University of Southern Indiana in 2008 with the first installment of his scholarship, but he transferred to community college when the fund collapsed.

“Wrecked,” he says is how he felt when the money stopped. “It was such a game-changer.”

So the scholars went to work on Facebook. They posted messages in support of McKelvey. They tweeted, texted, sent e-mails. “We didn’t think we had that much of a chance,” Wilson says. To their astonishment they finished the first round in the top 100. They pressed on, all the while knowing that winning round two was a long shot. When the voting closed about a week ago, McKelvey finished 80th out of 100.

Wilson is unbowed. He says the competition drew attention to the scholars’ plight. Who knows who might step up to help the students? Meantime, the scholars have built a motivated team that intends to look for other ways to fund the scholarships, he says.

Besides, as every son of Silicon Valley knows, failure is just the first step on the path to success.

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