Mr. Shawn Dill -- former university student and budding entrepreneur -- knows the pain of financial need.

Two years ago, the 26-year-old was studying education at the American International College in Springfield, Massachusetts and hoping to pursue a career in social work.

At the end of his third year at the college, however, Mr. Dill was forced to drop out because he lacked the money to continue.

It was a moment that he still looks back on with regret.

"I am a little bitter,'' Mr. Dill admitted to The Royal Gazette recently. "I had hoped to come back to Bermuda and apply my education to something useful, but I was cut short.'' Despite his abbreviated stint as a college student, however, Mr. Dill is nothing if not useful these days.

In the past several weeks, he has attempted to help out other college-bound students in need by reviving Bermuda Unite, a formerly defunct charity whose mandate it is to provide some half a dozen students a year with at least part of the money they will need to pursue their educations.

In launching the charity, Mr. Dill has also been putting his budding entrepreneurial skills to the test.

"Running (a charity),'' he said, "is very much like running a business. It's a lot of hard work and a lot of long hours.'' Under the BU's banner, Mr. Dill and his partners, BU co-chairman Mr. Walter Stevens and BU secretary Mr. Dion Smith, will be financing their charitable work by marketing a line of stylised cotton T-shirts with "inspirational messages'' on them.

The T-shirts, which come in a variety of colours, will soon be carried by a number of Island merchants, including the MarketPlace, which has agreed to sell them at no cost to BU.

They are expected be priced at $15 to $20.

"Part of the proceeds from each sale,'' Mr. Dill explained, "will be going to the charity. Right now the amount is some ten percent -- the minimum amount we can apply to the charity and still keep the T-shirts going. We hope to assist about six students that way -- three at the beginning of the September term and three in the winter.'' In order for students to become eligible for the grants, Mr. Dill said, they have to fulfill at least two basic requirements.

First, he explained, the successful candidate must already have completed a year of college either locally or abroad and done so with a grade point average of 2.0 or more.

Second -- and Mr. Dill admitted that there was no real way of enforcing this rule -- students who do receive assistance and then graduate from college must pledge to help out a similarly positioned young person who may require the same type of help in the future.

"We have no preference in terms of a student's field of study or choice of college,'' Mr. Dill said. "Education in general is a good thing. We simply ask that (the successful graduate) continue with the cause and help some other students to achieve their goals. That way we'll all be pulling for each other.'' Mr. Dill, a bright and articulate young man who clearly values learning, said that a primary motive for reviving BU was the belief that education was of particular importance nowadays to young Bermudians on the brink of great national change.

"Right now,'' he said, "we're a very literate society. But in order for us to remain literate -- to meet the challenges that Independence may bring -- we have to give our young people the best educations that they possibly can get.

"Being such a small community, we're going to find ourselves very dependent on each other. Bermuda Unite wants to do what it can to ensure that the Island goes in the right direction.'' In addition to preparing Bermudians for the challenges of the future, Mr. Dill felt that the BU goal of achieving a fully educated populace can also contribute to a kinder and more understanding society.

"People in Bermuda are needlessly polarised these days,'' he said. "If we understood each other more, took the time and effort to walk in each other's shoes more often, we wouldn't have a lot of the problems that we do.'' Mr. Dill's philosophy, his desire to see "a Bermuda that doesn't seem to exist'' anymore, is echoed in one of the messages, a Chinese proverb, that has been featured on the BU T-shirts.

"If there is light in the soul,'' the proverb goes in part, "there will be beauty in the person. If there is beauty in the person, there will be harmony in the house. (And) if there is harmony in the house, there will be order in the nation.'' Clearly, a formal education is the light that Mr. Dill sees at the end of the Bermudian tunnel.

He just hopes that enough people on the Island feel the same way.

"I really hope that this (BU) will evolve, that we'll get the assistance that we're looking for from the public and other organisations.'' So far, those organisations have been responding on a positive note.

In addition to the MarketPlace's generous offer, Dub City Records on Court Street and the Phoenix store in Hamilton have also agreed to carry the BU shirts, which Mr. Dill hopes will provide at least $1,000 in assistance to each successful applicant.

If more stores cannot be persuaded to carry the T-shirts at the charity's preferred price of $15 apiece, the young entrepreneur said that he may consider selling them through local churches as well.

"We just need to keep our costs down,'' Mr. Dill, who made it clear that does plan to finish his own education, told The Gazette . "Then we'll be all right.'' If Mr. Dill and his colleagues are any reflection of the Island's youth, the same might be said of Bermuda.

Bermuda Unite is expected is receive official status as a charitable organisation next month. Anyone who is interested in applying for student assistance through BU can do so by calling 232-0202.

MAN WITH A MESSAGE -- Mr. Shawn Dill with the customised T-shirts that he hopes will finance his Bermuda Unite student assistance charity.