A Scholarship Success Story

We are always thrilled to run into scholarship recipients like Claudette Woodhouse of

Claudette Woodhouse today

Norfolk, Virginia and to hear how well they are doing in life.

Today while touring Horizons Hampton Roads we got to see Claudette in action. Horizons is a summer enrichment program that helps public school students avoid the summer academic slide. Students spend six weeks of summer taking classes at area private schools in a program that includes academics, arts, swimming and field trips. The Hampton Roads Community Foundation has helped fund the 16-year-old program for years and manages its endowment.

Claudette, was the first student to go all the way through Horizons from kindergarten through eighth grade. She has returned to Horizons every summer since finishing the program to work as a staff member at Horizon's Norfolk Collegiate site. We first met Claudette in 2008 as she was entering her freshman year at Booker T. Washington High School in Norfolk. She was enjoying Horizons activities while focusing on going to college. 

Claudette in 2008

Today Claudette is a senior at Old Dominion University. For four years she received a scholarship through the community foundation's Joseph and Bertha Harry Scholarship. A bequest from the late Joseph Harry in 1990 created a scholarship fund in memory of the  Norfolk couple who never had the opportunity to go to college. . 

Claudette will graduate in December from ODU and plans to become a teacher. She will start her career in the Teach for America program working in New Jersey. We are very proud of Claudette and look forward to keeping up with her over the years.  

 (The Hampton Roads Community Foundation is a regional community foundation started in 1950 as the first community foundation in Virginia. It is among nearly 750 community foundation around the country serving specific geographic regions. 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 $210 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. You can click here to locate a community foundation near you. )