“It’s an important tradition that allows scholarship recipients the opportunity to personally thank the donors who made the scholarships possible,” said Dr. Debra Derr, NIACC President. “Each student has a unique story to tell and this year’s student speakers shared their own amazing stories.”
The recognition program featured comments from Dick Schinnow, who along with his sisters, created the Ann Schinnow Mason Memorial Scholarship in honor of their mother. Schinnow has a master’s in English Literature from the University of Oregon (Eugene, Oregon); a bachelor’s degree in biology and a minor in English from Whitworth College (Spokane, Washington). He was an English instructor at NIACC from 1985 to 2002, a Lifelong Learning Professor at NIACC from 2002 to 2010. He completed three novels and is a contributor to on-line publications and newspapers. Schinnow is the Iowa Independent Film Festival Co-founder.
Several student scholarship recipients also spoke at NIACC’s scholarship recognition luncheon.
Suzanne Haxton, of Klemme, received the Angus MacNider Arts and Sciences Scholarship. She is a non-traditional student who never expected to attend NIACC. She moved to Iowa and quickly learned her life would change. “I had one-week’s notice that I was going to be a single mother,” she said. “I had only lived in Iowa for six months. A community that didn’t even know me stepped in.”
She turned to NIACC.
Holding back tears, Haxton looked into the faces of the NIACC students in the crowd. “To you young students here in the room today, you may not have seen this. But for a person who had many doors shut in her face, I found that NIACC is a place of open doors. Even when you’re walking through the doors on campus wearing a winter coat and your hands are full, a NIACC student will hold the door open. They may not always have eye-contact, but their hand is out, holding that door for you. That’s NIACC. You won’t see that at many other schools.”
Sophomore Anna Buenneke, of Hazleton, received the Bill and Rachael Gildner Scholarship. She shared her gratitude with the crowd. She explained how she had six different jobs in high school to help raise money for college.
“Imagine working at eight dollars an hour at a summer job. In order to earn one thousand dollars you would have to work one hundred and twenty-five hours. Believe me, receiving free money in the mail from someone you don’t even know and have never met is like a check falling from heaven. The thing that is so easy to forget is that the money you receive is not genuinely free. Someone else, that person you have never met, had to work just as hard in order to fund the for the education of someone they have never met. That isn’t money falling from the sky; that is love.”
Buenneke, a member of the NIACC track team, has been able to pay for college entirely on her own with the help of the scholarships she has received. She plans to continue her education at a university and continue running. She plans to study marketing sales.
Nancy Tu Lam, of Sioux City, received the Haas Chiropractic Scholarship. She described a difficult childhood after her parents came to the United States from Vietnam. After her father died while she was in high school, many responsibilities fell onto Lam.
“I am the first generation to attend college and have had a lot of adult responsibilities as a teenager,” she said. “We were a low-income family so the scholarship I received at NIACC has been so helpful. I would like to thank the donor and let them know how much this has impacted my life in a positive way.”
After she graduates from NIACC, Lam plans to attend Palmer College of Chiropractic in Davenport. She plans to start her own business.
Andrew Corcoran, of Sumner, is a recipient of the NIACC Employee Scholarship. “I would like to say thank you to all of the NIACC employees who donated to this scholarship,” he said. “I am a pre-engineering student and plan to transfer to Iowa State University and pursue a degree in electrical engineering. So having these scholarships at NIACC really helps me save money for when I transfer to Iowa State, which will be more expensive than NIACC.”
“I would really like to thank the NIACC employees for creating this opportunity for me to prove to myself that I am worthy for this scholarship,” he said. “I would tell anyone who is contemplating becoming a donor to do it because it offers incoming and returning students a great opportunity and a chance to meet very gracious people.”
As the cost of higher education continues to increase, so does the need for student financial assistance in the forms of loans, grants and scholarships. Scholarship donations help students keep their borrowing to a minimum. While the College experiences great support from groups and individuals each year, the need remains for private support of the NIACC Foundation.
For more information on how to help the College help deserving students, please contact the NIACC Foundation at 641-422-4386.
