It takes a village? Well, the village came out to Walter and Terry Quinn’s River Ridge neighborhood home Oct. 15, hustling in out of the rain and drying off by rubbing elbows with some very generous benefactors of the Single Parent Scholarship Fund.
Here are the village elders, in a manner of speaking:
Terry Quinn - when the rain wouldn’t go away, she didn’t invite people to come again another day. “She was like, ‘Karin, there is nothing in this house that a wet dog hasn’t been on,’” said executive director Karin Bara. “I’m telling you, Terry is the most gracious host. She absolutely has a gift.” This was the second year for A Night of Hope at the Quinns.
The Anonymous Donor - Just days after this philanthropist locked arms with the Joneses and the Yorks for a $10 million gift to Catholic High School, he - or she - shows up at the Quinns to announce that every gift made that night would be matched - up to $10,000. (To be clear, we’re not suggesting it’s the same donor.)
Marge and Tom Schueck - The night’s presenting sponsors offered a very similar matching gift at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences’ Rockefeller Cancer Institute’s Gala for Life a month earlier. (To be clear, we’re not suggesting the Schuecks are the anonymous donors.)
Dora Jane Flesher, the village council president (event chairman) greeted everyone with a smile and a welcome that could lighten the mood in Mudville.
Jan Hundley, village council ex officio (last year’s chairman), looked like a legislative whip, reminding anyone she could that we were all here for a reason.
Satia Spencer, the inspiration, is a single mom and a Marine veteran who’s about to graduate from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and be a music teacher.
And finally, Bonnie Nickol, Sue Frueauff and Ellen Ingram. These three founders of the scholarship program, which has helped about 1,800 single parents in central Arkansas and dispensed about $1.3 million in aid to date, were honored this night.Something was made abundantly clear to them: They and the scholarship-mentoring program they started in the early 1990s are beloved, rain or shine.
About a third of the program’s $330,000 or so budget is raised during the fall fundraiser, Bara said.
High Profile, Pages 37 on 10/27/2013