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Do you want to
commemorate or
preserve the legacy
of a family member
or loved one?
Or simply help a
student achieve a
Saint Joseph’s College
education? For a
minimum of
$10,000, you can
endow in perpetuity
a named scholarship
that will change
someone’s life
forever.

Alumni and friends support Saint Joseph’s students through endowed scholarships. So can you, and it’s easier than you think.

Endowed scholarships vary greatly in size and purpose, but all have one thing in common – grateful Saint Joseph’s students. Here are a few of the benefactors and thankful recipients.

Alumna Endowed Scholarship Anonymous donor, given to honor alumna spouse; Mariya Barankevich ’07, recipient

This scholarship was established by its donor to support the College’s continuing role in providing a Catholic, values-centered, liberal arts and sciences education in the Mercy tradition. This year’s recipient is Mariya Barankevich ’07, of Windham, Maine. Mariya, an elementary education major, was born in Uzbekistan, lived near Moscow and came to this country as a religious refugee when she was 5 years old. She is one of 11 children in her Russian Baptist family, whose relocation to America was sponsored by Catholic Charities. Now a U.S. citizen, Mariya hasspent a summer volunteering in Belarus to help the staggering number of orphans there. Last fall, she raised money with her classmates at Saint Joseph’s to help buy Christmas presents for the orphans, who face extremely poor conditions. “I feel so lucky to be able to go to this college,” she says. “I really like the small classroom settings and the professors. I’m very blessed to be here.

Anita Finie Endowed Scholarship: Anita Finie, donor; Erika Bourgoin, recipient

Anita Finie ’86 of California feels she knows the students she helps through the “lovely letters” they send. A nurse who grew up in Poland during the chaos of World War II, she takes pride in what she calls a “beautiful vocation.” Experienced as a surgical nurse and nurse administrator, she received a bachelor’s degree from Saint Joseph’s in 1986 and continues to embrace her career through giving physicals in retirement homes, delivering communion to convalescing patients, running a flu clinic and working with abused children.

Why does she give generously to create an endowed scholarship? Because she embraces education, just as she has always embraced nursing. “Education is a most important thing in anyone’s life, and the only way to promote it is through perpetuating it – now, while I’m here – so I can see the fruits of my labor,” she says. Thanks to the Anita Finie Endowed Scholarship, Erika Bourgoin, a nursing student from Center Conway, N.H., graduates in May with far fewer loans to repay. “I have to worry about many things, and having that scholarship meant I had one less thing to stress over,” says Erika who works full-time in addition to being a full-time student. A member of Sigma Theta Tau, the national nursing honor society, she wants to be an emergency room nurse.

Just like Anita Finie, she knows what it’s like to be an older, non-traditional student. She says her inner strength often comes from her children, for whom she wants to be a role model. After years of juggling classes, work, studying and parenting, she has succeeded – in the best sense of the word.

Marie F. Magee Endowed Scholarship: Marie Magee & John Magee, donor; Sarah Gordon, recipient

Marie F. Magee was born and raised in Bangor, where she married and devoted herself to caring for her husband and children. Her children attended parochial schools and she was close to the Sisters of Mercy. She often donated items for the Saint Michael’s Home for Girls orphanage run by the Sisters. She eventually gave $10,000 to establish the Marie F. Magee Endowed Nursing scholarship for a nursing student at the Mercy School of Nursing in Portland, which subsequently was transferred to Saint Joseph’s College. Marie’s son, John Magee, recently added to his mother’s original scholarship fund, after getting thankful letters from the Saint Joseph’s nursing students. Magee says his mother set up the original trust fund to acknowledge her regard for the nuns’ work.

“I have had a chance to follow the development of the college at a distance and admire what it stands for and what it has accomplished,” he says.

“I have great regard for the nursing profession. I see the nurses at work in my role as a director of our regional hospital and my wife and I have had enough experience as hospital patients to know what a critical difference a nurse makes. We think the quality of nursing defines the quality of a hospital more than anything.

When we received notes from the recipients, we concluded that if a small fund could make such a difference, then a larger fund could do that much more. We are sure my mother would agree.”

Sarah Gordon, a senior nursing major, from Lincoln, Maine, grew up about 40 miles from where Marie Magee was raised. When she was in high school in East Millinocket, her grandfather landed in the hospital. “He really did not want to be there and I watched the nurses comfort him, make it more homey for him,” she says. “It inspired me … what they did for him,” she says. She decided to pursue nursing and now interns at the cardiac unit at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, where she hopes to work permanently.

“People look to you for support when you’re a nurse. It’s a nice role; you can soothe tears,” she says. A self-described “people person,” she is also a top nursing student and member of Sigma Theta Tau, the national nursing honor society.

“I really appreciate the scholarship,” Sarah says. “When they show me the bill – this is what you would have paid, and this is what you owe instead, that’s when it will really hit me.”

Make a difference. Make a Saint Joseph’s College education possible. Establish an endowed scholarship.

To learn more about the many different ways of funding an endowed scholarship, please contact Sean Ireland at 207-893-7899 or sireland@sjcme.edu.

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