MPMC Guild Gift Gallery endows VGCC Scholarship
Volunteers from the Guild at Maria Parham Medical Center recently presented a gift of $25,000 to the Vance-Granville Community College Endowment Fund that will create the Guild Gift Gallery at MPMC Presidential Scholar Award.
The gift was made possible by the work of Guild Gift Gallery volunteers, coordinated for the past 18 years by Gean Bobbitt of Henderson. The Guild has operated the Guild Gift Gallery since the 1990s, offering convenience items and gifts as a service to both patients and visitors. Since 2005, the Guild Gift Gallery has operated in the new MPMC patient tower. Profits from sales are used to provide scholarships to people entering the health care professions. The new VGCC scholarship will assist deserving students in health care-related college programs, such as Nursing, Radiography, Medical Assisting and Pharmacy Technology. Recipients must not be receiving any other form of financial assistance from the college and will be able to keep the scholarship as long as they are enrolled.
“It is our pleasure to be able to use our efforts to contribute to the community in this manner,” Henderson resident and Guild president Anne Bunch said. “VGCC is really one of Vance County’s biggest pluses, along with the hospital.” She noted that the Guild Gift Gallery currently has 24 regular volunteers, but more are needed and anyone wishing to join the Guild is welcome.
The Guild Gift Gallery scholarship will add to the more than 5,000 VGCC scholarships awarded since 1982, which have been funded by interest earned on the Endowment Fund and Scholarship Program. Scholarships have been established by individuals, businesses, civic groups, churches and the college’s faculty and staff to assist deserving VGCC students. With assets of more than $6 million, VGCC has one of the largest community college endowment and scholarship funds in the state. 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. In Fall 2007, Vance-Granville awarded scholarships to a record 317 full-time students, 14 of whom received Presidential Scholar Awards, the college’s most prestigious scholarships.
Above: Guild Gift Gallery volunteer coordinator Gean Bobbitt (second from left) and Guild president Anne Bunch (right), both of Henderson, present their group’s gift to VGCC Vice President of Institutional Advancement and Endowment Fund director Jo Anna Jones (left) and VGCC President Randy Parker (second from right) on Feb. 19. Sallye Lloyd, a volunteer who handles finances for the Guild, was unavailable for the photo. (VGCC Photo)
