It all began at an AAUW Bennington Branch board meeting at the home of Norma McShane back in 2006. In addition to supporting the national AAUW Education Fund, then President Judy Murphy proposed starting a scholarship program to help local women. The group decided the fund would  support non-traditional women students, women overcoming challenges to continuing their education. 

There was a scholarship program locally run by the Business and Professional Women (BPW). The organization was disbanding and we worked with them to take over the scholarships. 

In the beginning, the Scholarship Committee worked with the late Jan Bopp at the Tutorial Center, who ran a program called Bridge to College. Like BPW’s, our early scholarships were awarded to students in that program. This evolved into our involvement with students at Community College of Vermont.

Initially, we also took over BPW’s responsibilities of running a food concession at the Bennington Car Show, then held at the Pownal Race Track. It was a large source of funding that entailed scheduling teams of six persons in four hour shifts from Friday morning through Sunday evening from 8 AM to 5 PM. According to the September 2007 newsletter, we had to schedule 39 work slots for which members and a few husbands signed up. We sold hot dogs and hamburgers, pizza, chili, soft drinks, cookies and ran a popcorn machine. We were paid 20% of the money for all food sales and earned nearly $2000 during the weekend the first year. Best of all, we had no up-front costs because the NorShaft Lions bought and cooked all the food and provided the cold drinks. It was a major endeavor that ended three years later when the car show moved to Bennington.

After that, scholarship monies were raised by huge weekend garage sales, held at Jennifer Kern and Charlie Copp’s garage, and theater benefits that were held at Oldcastle Theatre and Dorset Theatre. 

The Branch Book Club was founded by member Marge Carter, and when she died suddenly in 2011, the group set up a memorial fund to help purchase textbooks for our scholarship winners. Donations have been matched each year by her husband, Col. Bob Carter. To date, $6,475 has been raised and distributed.

More money was needed. Fundraising ideas were raised at board meetings and after discussing many plans, all of them labor intensive, one member (I believe it was Madeline Kennedy) said, “I’d rather just make a donation!”  There was no argument!

A core group of donors was formed on the spot and pledged $100 each year. Mary Feidner volunteered to collect donations and the Silent Angels began. Contributions are anonymous and tax deductible. Members are invited to contact Mary to be included in the Silent Angels.

More recently, the Scribble Sisters was organized. The Scribble Sisters is a group of members who gather twice a month to write together. They have published three books and the profits from each of  their books has come to approximately $1000, which they have donated to the Scholarship Fund. Close to three thousand dollars have been contributed to date.

Gifts given in memoriam have been added to the fund.

The Scholarship Committee is chaired by Jennifer Kern, who works closely with Lucy Robinson, to identify eligible non-traditional women students. Ms. Robinson is the financial aid counselor at CCV. She helps students with the FAFSA application for their Pell grants and their VSAC scholarship applications. With this information the Scholarship Committee is able to assess each student’s financial needs and tailor our scholarships to fill in some of the gaps. We are grateful to Lucy for her invaluable help. She has since become an AAUW member. Other members of the committee are Gudrun Hutchins and Judy Murphy. Over the years Mary Feidner, the late Jane Bloom, Norma McShane and Andrea Weisberg have served on the committee.

The Scholarship Committee meets twice a year to award Fall and Spring semester awards. This year, Spring semester scholarships total $2000 and Marge Carter Book Awards are $450. Four women will be helped by this fund, one for the 5th time and three others for the first time.