Father Connie Dougherty Scholarship Fund of the
Community Foundation Awards $43,000 to Area Students

Front row: Naomi Bork, Sarasota Military Academy; Abbie O’Hern Weeks,  North Port High School; Dagmara Andrzejczyn, Sarasota High School; Veronica Graterol, Manatee Community College; Viktoria Hutter, Sarasota High School; Back row: Olga Lykhvar, Manatee Community College; Justin Williams, Riverview High School; Michael David White, Westcoast School; Renee Wheeler, North Port High School and Joseph Obi, Sarasota High School.

Tammi Peters, 1991 Father Connie Dougherty Scholarship award winner and current member of the selection committee.

Ten Sarasota County students were chosen from a pool of 116 applicants to receive college scholarships in the 32nd year of the Father Connie Dougherty Scholarship Fund.

After the popular priest died in 1975 at the age of 47, his friends and parishioners at Sarasota’s Incarnation Parish created the scholarship fund to honor Father Connie’s memory with affection and respect. “Father Connie” kids are selected on the basis of financial need, a demonstrated effort to work and help their family, and a desire to “give back” and become future pillars of the community as adults. Over the years, 327 scholarships have been awarded while the principle of the fund has grown to over $750,000. Also during that time, the amount of each scholarship has increased from a modest $500 to this year’s high of $4,300.

Tammi Peters spoke at the 2008 scholarship reception, held annually on the anniversary of Father Connie’s ordination as a priest each year on May 19th, to honor the recipients and share her story. In 1991, Peters received a $2,500 Father Connie scholarship which enabled her to matriculate from Manatee Community College to the University of South Florida. After graduating from USF, Tammi became an elementary school counselor and made it a point of pride to “give back” to the Father Connie Scholarship Fund, not merely the sum of her own award, but the greater amount of $4,000 which was then the current value of a scholarship. Tammi has also become a member of the Father Connie scholarship selection committee.

As Community Foundation Scholarship Coordinator Mimi Goodwill said to the 2008 awardees gathered at the ceremony, “Just like Tammi Peters, you can give back sacrificially for what you have received. Always remember her example to give generously to another person.”