I always appreciate professional advisors recommending the Hampton Roads Community Foundation to clients interested in leaving a legacy to forever help others.
I am especially grateful to the accountants, attorneys, bankers and wealth managers who entrust us with their own charitable gifts.
Among those creating permanent endowments is attorney Michael Hamar who started the
George D. and Marion Phelps Hamar HRBOR Scholarship here in 2011. Michael wanted to pay tribute to his parents (
pictured here just after their 1950 wedding) and also to Hampton Roads Business OutReach (HRBOR). Michael co-founded HRBOR in 2007 as our region's LGBTQ business chamber.
Michael started the scholarship in 2011 shortly after his mom, a retired cytology technician at Portsmouth Naval Hospital, passed away. His dad, a retired stockbroker from Virginia Beach, died in 2006.
To honor both his parents and also HRBOR, Michael donated to start the endowed scholarship fund at the community foundation. He set the selection criteria to be for self-identifying lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender students from Chesapeake, Hampton, Newport News, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk or Virginia Beach. Scholarship recipients have demonstrated involvement in the LGBT community and need financial aid for undergraduate education at a four-year college or university.
In May, one Hamar HRBOR Scholar from Virginia Beach graduated from Christopher Newport University after four years of scholarship support. Our newest recipient, who lives in Chesapeake, will be a freshman at North Carolina State University with dreams of becoming a veterinarian.
Michael says people regularly tell him they dream of starting their own scholarship funds. "I always give them the community foundation's name," he says, noting that many people do not know all that is involved in properly starting and managing scholarship funds. The Hamar HRBOR Scholarship is among nearly 90 scholarship funds administered by the community foundation.
If I can help you or your clients find ways to honor a special family member or organization, please let me know.
Kay Stine, CFRE
Vice President for Development
Hampton Roads Community Foundation
(757) 622-7951
p.s. Monday at 10 a.m. is the deadline to register for Tuesday's 7:30 a.m. Understanding Hampton Roads breakfast forum at the Chesapeake Conference Center. Presenters will focus on the new Hampton Roads Talent Alignment Strategy. The community foundation sponsored the workforce gap analysis and alignment strategy being released in partnership with the Hampton Roads Workforce Council.
Click here to learn more and register.
