Legacies of learning

The late James Preston Lyons’ acceptance to an Ivy League college couldn’t have come at a worse time.

It was the early 1930s and the Great Depression had taken hold. Lyons made it one year at his dream school, but then had to return home to Georgia. The money had run out.

Lyons went on to have a very successful career in the insurance and real estate businesses, yet the sting of his abbreviated Ivy League education never fully left him.

So, with the help of his nephew, Cleg Penn, Lyons took action.

“One of his dreams had been smashed to bits,” Penn said. “He managed to pick himself up and dust himself off, but he didn’t want another kid to get into an Ivy League or similar school and not be able to attend because of money.”

Out of that conviction was born the Nancy Penn Lyons Scholarship, a four-year award of up to $6,000 each year aimed at filling the gap between a student’s financial aid package and remaining college-related expenses. Each year since 1987, five to six Georgia high school seniors receive the scholarship.

“This scholarship has been immensely helpful in relieving the stress and financial burden of attending a private university,” said Velda Wang, a Nancy Penn Lyons’ recipient and senior at Duke University. “I am incredibly grateful for the opportunities that the scholarship has afforded me and assisted me in earning my degree.”

HUNDREDS OF SCHOLARSHIPS, EVERY YEAR

The Nancy Penn Lyons scholarship is one of hundreds the Foundation provides to students through a range of scholarship funds they manage each year.

Donors have a range of motivations for establishing a scholarship fund with the Foundation, according to Foundation scholarships manager Kara Gardner, Ed.D.

For instance, a donor whose children went to historically Black colleges, pays the balance due for scholarship students at Clark Atlanta, Morehouse and Spelman. Another donor’s passion is supporting undocumented students after seeing the need in his community.

The Foundation manages scholarships in three tiers that include:

• Providing processing services for community organizations that offer scholarships.

• Fully managing a scholarship established by a donor, including review and selection of applicants and distribution of the awards.

• Partnering with a donor or donor family (such as the case with the Nancy Penn Lyons Scholarship) to establish and manage an application, create a selection process and distribute the awards.

‘HE’D BE GRINNING EAR TO EAR’

The Foundation and donors often receive heartfelt letters and testimonials from scholarship recipients as they advance through their college careers.

One such student, Trinitee Richards, said she would not have been able to attend her dream school, North Carolina A&T State University, had she not received a scholarship from the Jim Kennedy Scholarship Fund.

And she would never have had the opportunity to get an internship at Google, where she hopes to launch her career as a software engineer after graduating.

“Honestly my internship there was only possible because of the university I attended,” Richards said. “And that would not have been possible if it weren’t for the Jim Kennedy Scholarship Fund and the Foundation.”

Cleg Penn said that receiving letters of gratitude is one of the rewards of the scholarship his uncle established in his beloved wife’s name.

Sadly, his uncle passed away shortly before the first cohort of students received the award in 1987.

Yet Penn knows he would have been thrilled to see the students attending prestigious colleges without daunting financial concerns standing in their way.

“I know he’d be grinning ear to ear if he could see all these students get these opportunities,” Penn said. “That’s what he wanted, and we’ve been true to his wishes.”