How Can I Help People Go to College and Succeed in Life?

To give the gift of education, you can be like Fannie Royster Cooke and her husband Richard Cooke. You can endow a scholarship at your area community foundation and have it last forever. There are more than 700 community foundations serving specific geographic areas in the United States. Your thoughtfulness will help people forever.

In 1951 the Cookes, who were long-time Norfolk, Virginia residents, created the first fund

Fannie Royster Cooke

at the Hampton Roads Community Foundation, which was founded in 1950 as Virginia's first community foundation. The Cookes' goal was to honor their two adult sons and to help send southeastern Virginia students to Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond.

Sixty-three years later, the Richard Dickson Cooke and Sheppard Royster Cooke scholarship is alive and well. Hampton resident John C. McClure is the latest in a long line of Cooke Scholars being helped long after Fannie, Richard and their sons have passed away.

The Cooke Scholarship is one  of more than 60 endowed scholarship funds administered by the Hampton Roads Community Foundation -- most for undergraduate education. During the 2013-14 academic year there are 358 students receiving more than $1 million from endowed scholarship funds.

Each scholarship fund reflects the unique interests of the donors who started it. Some scholarships are for specific fields of study such as architecture or education. Others are for graduates of specific high schools such as Ocean Lakes High in Virginia Beach or Maury High in Norfolk. And, some scholarships are for students attending specific colleges and universities such as the University of Virginia or Hampden-Sydney College. 

Since 1951 more than 3,900 individuals have received more than $18 million in Hampton Roads Community Foundation scholarships. Most of them have been a scholarship recipient for up to four years of study.

Tomorrow, February 28, is the application deadline for students to apply for 2014-15 Hampton Roads Community Foundation scholarships. This year there are eight new scholarship funds available because caring donors last year entrusted the Hampton Roads Community Foundation to forever help students in their names. Learn more.

Scholarship application season is an occasion to pause and say thank you to the generous donors who make education a reality for so many students.  

 (The Hampton Roads Community Foundation is a regional community foundation started in 1950 as the first community foundation in Virginia. It is the largest grant and scholarship provider in southeastern Virginia and manages more than 400 charitable funds created by donors from all walks of life. Over the decades it has provided more than $195 million to improve life for residents living in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia, including the cities of Chesapeake, Franklin, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Smithfield, Suffolk and Virginia Beach. It also serves people in Isle of Wight and Southampton counties and the Eastern Shore of Virginia, including Accomack and Northampton counties. Learn more at hamptonroadscf.org.)