A scholarship fund in the name of a ConVal educator who died in 2021 will be available for students for the first time this spring.
The Mary Lou O’Neill Vocational Scholarship has been started from fundraising efforts by family members of O’Neill, who worked for more than 20 years as a school-to-career coordinator at ConVal High School.
“It was a logical thing to support and show our love for Mary Lou,” said her sister Susan O’Neill. “It reflects her love for the students and the community by having this kind of scholarship.”
The scholarship will be available for students looking to pursue a two-year community college program, a technical school or a technical certification.
Susan O’Neill said the idea for a vocational scholarship was proposed after Mary Lou died and a group of family and friends were gathered to celebrate her life.
“We brought up the idea of what we could do to honor Mary Lou,” she said. “We jumped on it immediately, it was a done deal within seconds.”
The scholarship will be distributed through ConVal’s Dollars for Scholars, a group that Susan O’Neill said was close to her sister’s heart.
“We’re pretty honored to have this; it’s great that they chose us,” said Chris Heider, president of Dollars for Scholars. “I know this is probably what she wanted. We’re really proud to be able to help them out to distribute the money.”
Through donations, both from a GoFundMe page and person-to-person fundraising, O’Neill’s family raised more than $31,000 for the scholarship.
“We were just blown away,” said Susan.
According to Heider, this is enough to keep the scholarship going for at least a few years. After that, the family and Dollars for Scholars have not discussed further expansion of the fund, instead wanting to wait to see how the first year goes.
Students can begin applying through the Common Application, an online app that students use to apply for colleges and scholarships. Heider said applications will be due during the week of April 18. Students can also access the scholarship if they are nominated by a ConVal faculty member, and Heider said that Dollars for Scholars has already seen some nominations.
There is no specific limit to how many students will be recipients or how much money will be rewarded.
“We want to make sure it’s in line with what the family values and what they wanted to do, in the memory of ML and what ML would want,” said Heider. “It’s been a really collaborative experience to make sure that her wishes are honored with what she would want.”
“It fit with what she tried to do for her students,” said Susan O’Neill. “Giving them oppor tunities and internships for kids to explore different careers . To me it was a logical thing, so we didn’t even give it any thought.”