Community Education

Local women win $44,000 in Minerva Scholarships

Posted on July 30th, 2024 By: Julie Warrick Ammann

Eight local women were acknowledged and awarded a combined total of $44,000 in scholarships last weekend by the Minerva Scholarship Fund.

Established in 1991, the Minerva Scholarship Fund offers scholarships to women whose formal education has been interrupted, aiding them in completing their studies. Women residing or working within the boundaries of the Peninsula School District, who have experienced at least a one-year interruption in their academic education, are eligible to apply.

With these new scholars, Minerva has granted 227 scholarships totaling nearly $600,000 since the first scholarship was awarded in 1993.

Minerva scholars

This year, the organization welcomes its first scholars to study nano-engineering and particle physics. “It’s great to see women in STEM programs,” Minerva Board President Julie Offner said.

2024 scholarship winners include:

Kristen East, pursuing a masters degree in counseling

Candise Greenlee, pursuing a masters degree in curriculum and instruction

Lauren Henricksen, pursuing a bachelors degree in anthropology

Nicole Keller, pursuing a masters degree in marriage and family therapy

Louise-Amorette Chiossi, pursuing a masters degree in material science and nano engineering

Stacey Lind, pursuing a bachelors degree in education and a teaching credential

Kylie Roppolo, pursuing a bachelors degree in nursing

Gretchen Showalter, pursing a masters degree in particle physics

From the KP to Copenhagen

Schowalter will study particle physics at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

“I’m really into particle physics because I like the really big questions,” she said at the annual Minerva Scholarship reception.

Schowalter pursued math and physics as an undergraduate at Lewis & Clark College in Portland.

“I was in college right when the pandemic hit, so it kind of upended a lot of plans and made the traditional (academic) pathway” difficult, she said. Like many college students, Schowalter returned home during the pandemic, putting her dreams of earning a PhD on hold.

While visiting her local library on the Key Peninsula, she came across a poster about the Minerva Scholarship and decided to apply.

From her small town on the KP to studying the history of the universe in Denmark, Schowalter’s world will expand significantly with the support of the Minerva Scholarship Fund. “I will feel your support all the way across the Atlantic,” she told the audience at the Minerva reception.

Learning interrupted

A common theme among scholarship recipients was unexpected interruptions. Nicole Keller paused her pursuit of an associate degree to care for her dying mother. Combined with the demands of motherhood and eventually becoming a single parent, college remained on hold.

“I would not be able to go to school would I not have this money. It’s huge and I’m grateful. I think it’s incredible. Incredibly, this kind of support exists,” she said.

After earning a bachelors degree in psychology, Keller will seek her master’s degree and plans to specialize in psychology for geriatric patients.

A past recipient’s story

Past Minerva Scholarship recipients shared their stories of struggle and triumph at the annual scholarship reception.

Olga Inglebritson dreamed of attending college, but life kept getting in the way. The teen mom from Brooklyn eventually found herself living on the Key Peninsula with three young children as a single parent. The GED she earned while living in Brooklyn had been enough to find good jobs in New York, but that wasn’t the case in Washington state.

“I couldn’t get a career. I could do jobs. But nothing was giving me a livable wage,” she said.

With the encouragement of her late husband, Inglebritson enrolled in a paralegal program at Tacoma Community College as a part-time student. “I walked over to TCC at the ripe age of 35 years old and I signed up. I didn’t know what a FAFSA was, I didn’t know what a Pell Grant was.” As a first-generation student, Inglebritson had not grown up in a household where college was discussed.

Getting through the final quarter

Slowly and steadily, while caring for her three children, Inglebritson worked through assignments and earned credits in community college. However, life interrupted once again. She had only one quarter left to complete but didn’t have enough money to pay for it.

“Somebody said, you should try Minerva!” Inglebritson explained.

She was hesitant to apply but did so anyway. “I thought, (for) the little girl from Brooklyn, these things don’t happen for us. It’s not going to happen.’

A few months later, a letter arrived from the Minerva Scholarship Fund. She had been selected as a scholarship winner. “It was the exact amount I needed to cover the rest of that quarter,” she shared.

Inglebritson went on to earn her master’s degree from The Evergreen State College in Olympia. Fulfilling her husband’s dying wish, also obtained a doctorate. Today, Dr. Olga Inglebritson is the dean of Tacoma Community College in Gig Harbor, the very first college she attended as a student.

“I started this journey at 35 and I finished this journey at 50. And that $500 scholarship really broke a door for me that I never knew was so locked.”

‘Local women helping local women’

Minerva Board President Julie Offner believes the scholarship enriches the local community. “We’re local women helping local women,” she says. She hopes to see the nonprofit raise more funds to support even more women in the community. “Listening to their success stories makes me happy,” Offner reflected.

Additional information about the Minerva Scholarship Fund, its history, and current and past recipients can be found at minervagigharbor.org. The Minerva Scholarship Fund, affiliated with the Greater Gig Harbor Foundation, is a non-profit tax-exempt 501c3 organization.