JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Earning a college degree may seem like an impossible dream to students hoping to be the first in their families to attend college, but a joint effort between the University of North Florida and The Players Championship can help.
Thanks to a $250,000 gift from The Players Championship Charities Inc. in 2010, just more than 300 UNF students were awarded First Generation scholarships in 2011-12.
The Players' donation was part of a matching grant program that began in 2006 when the Florida Legislature appropriated $6.5 million statewide to be matched by private donations.
More than 1,100 UNF students have received scholarships since the program's inception.
Last year, the university received an additional $500,000 from The Players, bringing the total given to $750,000. The organization made a five-year commitment to provide scholarships to UNF, which will be matched by the state.
"The First Generation scholarship has the potential to change the future for entire families," said UNF President John Delaney. "I believe that giving a student the opportunity to be the first in his or her family to go to college is truly a great gift."
For UNF junior Chelsea Partridge, a mechanical engineering major, the First Generation Scholarship Program has literally helped her reach for the stars, powering her ambition to work in aerospace. Her love of space began when she was young.
"When I was 6 years old, my father used to take me outside at night to gaze up at the stars. I have vivid memories of him pointing out and explaining the constellations," Partridge said. "Looking back, I can see how these experiences were the beginning of my passion and obsession with space."
Partridge, 19, a Westside resident, has been able to participate in two paid internships at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, where she worked side-by-side with aerospace engineers and physicists in the Prototype Development Lab. She assisted NASA in designing a clamping tool used to help fix desiccant tubes, which detect hazardous gas leaks, for the space shuttle program. The clamping tool actually went into space in the final space shuttle missions.
"I can barely express how thrilling it was to help design tools actually used by NASA. These hands-on, real world experiences, coupled with my classes at UNF and the interactions with my professors, have helped fuel my ambitions of becoming a mechanical engineer," said Partridge, who hopes to one day work in the aerospace or defense industries, developing planes and rockets.
Another recipient, Dominic Cummings, said his family also did not have money to send him to college, but now he's been able to study abroad in Germany, thanks to the scholarship.
"That opportunity was great because it just kind of opened up my mind to being transformed the way I think and the way I do things," Cummings said.
Also at a luncheon Wednesday with the scholarship recipients was J.T. Townsend, a paralyzed football player who plans to graduate from UNF this year with a degree in sports management. He spends as much time as possible working with his foundation, which provides financial assistance, adaptive equipment and research funding for children and adults with disabilities or life-changing medical conditions.
In the last five years, just less than 1,200 UNF students have been a part of the First Generation Scholarship Program, using a total of $4.4 million to earn their degrees. The university anticipates awarding scholarships averaging $2,500 to at least 300 deserving students each year.
"They're going to change lives themselves. They're going to do special things, whether it's rocket science or engineering or nursing," said Jack Garnett, Red Coat and past chairman of The Players Championship. "One of the things that makes you a strong and vibrant community is having a well-educated workforce. That's what sets you apart when you're competing with other cities."
Tara Brown-Ogilvie, a senior studying sign language interpreting, hopes that by gaining this opportunity she can help others.
"You're kind of helping change us so we can make a change in the community," she said.