Triangle North Healthcare Foundation completes VGCC Scholarship endowment


From left, VGCC Endowment Director Eddie Ferguson, Triangle North Healthcare Foundation executive director Val Short, and VGCC President Dr. Stelfanie Williams celebrate the creation of the new scholarship. (VGCC photo)

From left, VGCC Endowment Director Eddie Ferguson, Triangle North Healthcare Foundation executive director Val Short, and VGCC President Dr. Stelfanie Williams celebrate the creation of the new scholarship.
(VGCC photo)

The Triangle North Healthcare Foundation recently completed fully endowing a scholarship that supports Vance-Granville Community College students who are preparing for careers in health sciences.

Val Short, the executive director of the foundation, visited the college to present contributions to the VGCC Endowment Fund and celebrate the milestone. “We are proud to be able to provide scholarships for local students, as part of our mission of service to the region,” Short noted. “This endowed scholarship is an expression of our board’s commitment to supporting a well-educated health care workforce, and we are pleased to have such an excellent partner in Vance-Granville.”

The Triangle North Healthcare Foundation is a regional grant-making organization that was established in 2011 as the successor to the Maria Parham Healthcare Foundation. The foundation focuses on Vance, Granville, Franklin and Warren counties, which also constitute the college’s service area. Its mission is to encourage, support, and invest in quality efforts that measurably improve health in the Triangle North region.

The Triangle North Healthcare Foundation Academic Achievement Award scholarship is presented to a full-time VGCC student who meets certain academic requirements. In awarding the scholarship, preference is given to students pursuing a health-related program of study, such as Pharmacy Technology, Medical Assisting, Nursing or Radiography. Recipients are called “Triangle North Foundation Scholars,” and the organization will seek to recognize and stay in touch with each one in the years to come. In 2014, Patricia W. Williams of Wake Forest, a Radiography student, became the first Triangle North Foundation Scholar.

“We appreciate the foundation’s continuing partnership with VGCC, which further enables us to support our community of learners to achieve professional and personal success, particularly in growing medical career fields,” said Dr. Stelfanie Williams, VGCC’s president.

Through the Endowment Fund, VGCC has awarded more than 7,000 scholarships to students since 1982. Scholarships have been endowed by numerous individuals, industries, businesses, civic groups, churches and the college’s faculty and staff. Tax-deductible donations to the VGCC Endowment Fund have often been used to honor or remember a person, group, business or industry with a lasting gift to education. For more information, call (252) 738-3409.