Past Scholarship Recipients

Since its inception, The Thomas and Elsie Foundation has awarded over $2,000,000 worth of scholarships to more than 55 Sacred Heart High School students.  There are usually between eight and fifteen scholarship students enrolled in colleges and universities during any academic year. The Deeley Foundation does not place any restrictions on the choice of schools; scholarship recipients are free to select any college or university they wish to attend.

The following chart shows the number of students receiving Deeley Foundation scholarships for any given academic year.  While the number of students receiving aid varies from year to year, the trend over time is towards increasing the number of students receiving scholarships.  With our expanding number of partnership agreements, we expect that this increasing trend will continue in the future.

FOUNDATION STUDENTS BY YEAR

Our scholarship recipients have attended 18 different colleges and universities.  Most students seem to prefer attending schools in the State of Connecticut.  In addition, several recipients elected to attend schools in Massachusetts.  Recipients have also attended schools in New York, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Florida, Vermont, and Virginia. The University of Connecticut is the most popular choice followed by Fairfield University, Southern Connecticut State University, and Central Connecticut State University.

We are extremely proud of the graduation rate of our scholarship recipients.  Over 97% of our recipients graduate from college; a figure that exceeds the success rate of almost every college in the country!  The chart below summarizes the wide array of colleges that our recipients have attended.

FOUNDATION STUDENTS PIE

Students are not required to attend one of our partner schools, but many do.  As you can see from the following chart, a significant portion of our scholarships are given to students attending state universities, in particular, the University of Connecticut which is not one of our partners.

FOUNDATION PARTNERSHIPS PIE DOLLARS

Our scholarships are not necessarily awarded to students who are the best academically in high school.  There are several factors that the selection committee considers when making scholarship awards, and academic success, while a factor, is not an over-riding one.  The chart below illustrates that almost two-thirds of our scholarship recipients are NOT in the top 10% of the class academically.

FOUNDATION 2 PIE

Many of our recipients have gone on to obtain advanced degrees.  More than half have obtained advanced degrees and six have either obtained Doctorates or are working towards them.  The chart below depicts the distribution of these degrees.

FOUNDATION DEGREES CIRCLE-1

Many of our scholarship recipients have volunteered to serve as mentors to newer scholarship students, either those attending the same college or those enrolled in the same major.   Whenever possible we assign a previous scholarship recipient to mentor a new recipient. Currently, we have more volunteers than we can use; either because we don’t have students at their colleges or we don’t have students majoring in their areas of expertise.

The students whose names are highlighted below are those scholarship recipients who either are serving or have already served as mentors and/or are providing assistance to one or more of our scholarship recipients.  The Deeley Foundation is extremely appreciative of these students who are helping us “pay it forward”.

STUDENT COLLEGE/UNIVERSITY YEAR
Valerie Moore Fairfield University 1996
Rocco Guerrera Fairfield University 1997
Richard Robaillard Opted Not To Attend Fairfield University And Declined Award 1998
Miquel Acquino Fairfield University 1999
Christine Lamas Fairfield University 1999
Julian Saavedra Fairfield University 2000
Christa Szantyr Fairfield University 2001
Jenna LoGiudice Fairfield University 2002
Rob Guerrera Quinnipiac University 2003
Stephanie LeStage Central Connecticut State University 2003
Erik Johnson University of Connecticut 2003
Matt Alspaugh Southern Connecticut State University 2003
Alexei Bachuretz Quinnipiac University/Southern Connecticut State University 2004
Eric Ellis Hampton University 2004
Kanping Zhong University of Connecticut 2004
Jessica Bell University of Connecticut 2005
Peter Gonzalez Southern Connecticut State University/University of Central Florida 2005
Marisa Mango Southern Connecticut State University 2005
David Bedard University of Rhode Island 2006
Maegen Blankschen Southern Connecticut State University 2006
Chavonne White Southern Connecticut State University 2006
Arielle Bailey St. John’s University 2007
Melanie Deziel University of Connecticut 2008
Steven Naylor Massachusetts Maritime Academy 2008
Daniel Camacho University of Connecticut 2009
Aaron Radden Central Connecticut State University 2009
Legairre Radden Central Connecticut State University 2009
Michael Strumski University of Connecticut 2010
Andre Gary University of Connecticut 2010
Alexandra McDonald Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences 2010
Henry Sahn Quinnipiac University 2010
Deanna Rosa Fairfield University 2011
Kaitlyn Dwyer Central Connecticut State University 2011
Kimberly Grendzinski University of Connecticut 2012
Jake L Martin Gordon College 2012
Dionne Parker Coastal Carolina University 2013
Molly Murphy Southern Connecticut State University 2013
Hayley Iannantuoni Southern Connecticut State University 2013
Brian Luis Boston University 2014
Brandon Arnold University of Connecticut 2015
Kerryan Ashley University of Connecticut 2015
Cecilia Lopez University of Connecticut 2015
Meaghan Spagnolo Southern Connecticut State University 2015
Eunices Franco University of Connecticut 2016
Ireland Gilmore University of Connecticut 2016
Jake Rinaldi Williams College 2016
Erin Brown Central Connecticut State University 2017
Jatorra Jackson University of Connecticut 2017
Heather Brown University of Connecticut 2017
Klediol Kaso University of Connecticut 2018
Jenna Madigan University of Connecticut/Fairfield University 2018
Ava Longo University of Connecticut 2019
Robert Guerin Castleton University 2019
Katie Pelletier Southern Connecticut State University 2019
Arreyion Yates Stonehill College 2019
Liz DeCrisanti Fairfield University 2020
Jeferson Garcia Central Connecticut State University 2020
Tommy Romero Western Connecticut State University 2020

Whenever possible; The Thomas and Elsie Deeley Foundation tries to remain in contact with former scholarship recipients. We continue to offer guidance and advice and ask former recipients to serve as mentors for recent scholarship recipients. To see what many of our former recipients have achieved and are currently doing, please go to the Updates On Past Scholarship Recipients page of our website.