New Scholarship Fund At DCF To Benefit Southern Delaware Students
There is is new scholarship fund at DCF to benefit Southern Delaware Students. Simmons Scholarship will support BIPOC graduates of Milford and Cape Henlopen High School.
Even as a child growing up in southern Delaware, Omari Simmons knew that two things mattered in his family: education and helping others.
Simmons graduated from Milford High School. He is now a law professor at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Grateful for the opportunities he was given, he has established the Cynthia and Nathaniel Simmons Memorial Scholarship Fund at the Delaware Community Foundation.
The new Simmons Scholarship will help fund college for Cape Henlopen and Milford High School graduates who identify as members of a historically disenfranchised or underrepresented racial or ethnic minority.
The Simmons Scholarship honors Simmons’ mother, Cynthia, and his brother, Nathaniel Simmons III. Cynthia was an elementary school science teacher in the Cape Henlopen School District. According to Omari, she always pressed the importance of higher education and invested in every student. Omari’s brother Nathaniel inspired him by fighting through ill health to earn a degree from Pennsylvania State University shortly before he died in 1995.
After the deaths of Cynthia and Nathaniel III in 1995, Omari and his father, Nathaniel Simmons Jr., started the Simmons Memorial Foundation to help underrepresented and historically disenfranchised students in Southern Delaware and beyond to learn about and pursue higher education. The foundation continues to serve students in North Carolina and Southern Delaware.
Now the Simmons Scholarship at the DCF will complement the work of the Simmons Foundation. The first Simmons Scholarship will be awarded in May 2024 for the 2024-2025 school year. Students can apply for the Simmons Scholarship and dozens of other scholarships through the DCF’s single online application at delcf.org/scholarships when it opens in December. Donors can make contributions to the fund at delcf.org/donations/simmons.
About the Delaware Community Foundation
The mission of the Delaware Community Foundation is to improve the lives of the people of Delaware by empowering and growing philanthropy through knowledge and relationships, now and in the future. As a facilitator, information resource and manager of charitable funds, the DCF helps communities and philanthropists focus charitable resources for the greatest community benefit statewide. For more information, visit delcf.org or call 302.571.8004.
