Edna Scott Faulk In Virginia, the late 1950s were turbulent years as some public schools closed rather than desegregate. Retired educator Edna Scott Faulk of Chesapeake remembers 1959 for a more positive reason – the college scholarship she received from the Hampton Roads Community Foundation. Edna was a high school senior in 1959 at the Princess Anne County Technical Training School in what is now Virginia Beach. The $500 annual scholarship Edna received “saved my life,” she says. It let her register for classes at Elizabeth City State University for four years knowing “everything was taken care of ” by the community foundation. Edna Faulk was the oldest of four children raised by their single mother, who worked as a maid. She recalls her homeroom teacher telling her about the scholarship. “With no money for college,” Edna immediately applied. After four years of financial support, she earned her bachelor’s degree in elementary education in 1963. Edna still recalls how she “jumped all around” in 1959 when her scholarship award letter arrived. She was among the first five students awarded Carrie Biggs Morrison Memorial Scholarships from the community foundation. Edna also was its first recipient to attend an Historically Black College and University (HBCU). A 1959 bequest from Edna Faulk in 1959 Carrie’s estate created the scholarship for
Photo by Glen McClure
Scholarship ‘Saved My Life’
Edna Faulk is grateful for her scholarship.
students from Princess Anne County, where Carrie lived, and Martin County, N.C., where she grew up. Today, there are 27 Morrison Scholars in college. This year, 20 students attend eight HBCUs with help from $67,700 in community foundation scholarships. Among them is freshman Justice Cross from Franklin, who is studying at Edna’s alma mater to become a nurse. Justice’s scholarship is provided by the Walter Cecil Rawls Educational Fund. It is for students from Western Tidewater, where Walter was born, and Gates County, N.C., where his wife Ella grew up. Justice is among six Rawls Scholars. After graduating from ECSU, Edna spent her career with Chesapeake Public Schools as a reading specialist, assistant principal and principal. She also earned two master’s degrees from Old Dominion University. When she retired in 1997, she supervised student teachers at ODU and directed a Norfolk preschool. Today, Edna volunteers through Divine Baptist Church in Chesapeake and is proud to be a role model for her children and grandchildren.
Dr. Robert Abbott
in 2012 with a chemistry degree. To help pay for college he worked 20 hours a week in an emergency room. At UVA’s medical school, Rob found himself anxious, depressed and dealing with other health issues. During the leave of absence he focused on healthy eating, meditating, and doing yoga and other exercise. That effort, teamed with a research project Robert Abbott, M.D., vividly recalls “burning out mentally” on positive thinking and surgery outcomes, helped him discover after his first semester in medical school. To heal himself, the “a whole different way of going about medicine.” Yorktown resident hit the pause button for a year. During Before his final year at UVA, Rob won a scholarship his year’s absence from school, he found his from the Victor and Ruth N. Goodman Memorial Fund life’s calling – treating patients with the help of administered by the Hampton Roads Community nutrition, fitness and mindfulness. Foundation. “I am so grateful,” Rob says. The scholarship Rob, who was helped by a Hampton Roads “means so much more than the dollar sign may entail. Community Foundation scholarship, graduated This was the first scholarship I received during my eight from the University of Virginia School of years of undergraduate and medical education.” Medicine in 2017. He is in a family medicine His scholarship came from a bequest from Ruth residency in Front Royal. He also hosts a weekly Goodman, a longtime Norfolk hospital volunteer. Her Wisdom and Well-Being podcast and has wish was to help students like Rob prepare for careers written a book about integrative and functional in health. This year, there are 16 Goodman Scholars health approaches. studying to be doctors, pharmacists, nurses and other Before medical school, he graduated summa Robert Abbott health professionals. cum laude from The College of William & Mary
Burnout Led to Career
Cour tesy photo
2
H a m p to n R oa d s C o m m u n i t y Fo u n dat i o n