Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Doing Good: Norfolk Couple's Scholarship Helps Students Today

Meet Raven Bland, Norfolk's first Youth Poet Laureate,
and a Hampton Roads Community Foundation scholarship recipient.
Raven Bland
Raven Bland 
(photo by Glen McClure)

Raven is a senior at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia who has been helped by a Joseph A. and Bertha W. Harry scholarship since her freshman year of college. She is among 413 students going to college in the fall with more than $1.3 million in Hampton Roads Community Foundation scholarships started by donors like the Harrys.

Raven, a Granby High School graduate, grew up in the same Norview neighborhood in Norfolk where the Harrys lived. Joseph made his living as a grocery buyer and owner of  rental houses. He and his wife Bertha had no children but left a $1.7 million bequest to start a permanent scholarship fund for ODU and Virginia Wesleyan College students. So now the Harrys have hundreds of children who have all have benefited from their generosity.

Bertha _ Joseph Harry
Bertha and Joseph Harry
Raven will be among 40 students helped by the Harry Scholarship in 2016-17. She has written poetry as a hobby since age 12 and last year won Norfolk's inaugural Youth Poet Laureate contest sponsored by Teens With a Purpose, Urban Word, Hampton Roads Youth Poets and the Norfolk Public Library. This 1-minute-27-second video produced by ODU gives a glimpse into Raven's poetry.

Winning the 2015 contest led to Raven's first published book of poetry When the Raven Sings and public readings of her work where she saw first-hand how her words help people deal with life issues.


Raven is a history major who aspires to a career in government. She works at ODU's Student Success Center and this summer is interning with the City of Norfolk in its Department of Neighborhood Development.