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September 30, 2015Sunmark Awards Scholarships to Two Capital Region Students
From the left, Frank DeGraw, Sunmark CEO and Brian Delehanty, Sunmark Charitable Community Foundation President, present the Rachel J. Zimolka scholarship to Victoria Maddalone (center). On the right, Lucy and Paul Zimolka look on.
This year, Sunmark Federal Credit Union’s 16th annual Golf Classic, which was held on August 24 at Shaker Ridge Country Club in Loudonville, raised more than $27,000 that will serve as seed money for the Sunmark Charitable Community Foundation.
To celebrate this new giving program, the Foundation awarded two scholarships in memory of Susan V. Siegel and Rachel J. Zimolka, two beloved Sunmark executives who were sought-out business mentors and vibrant members of the community.
“These inaugural scholarships are a way for us to honor two of our colleagues who passed away in recent years and to pay it forward to the next generation of community leaders,” said Bryan Delehanty, president of the Sunmark Charitable Community Foundation “By establishing the Foundation, we’ve created a more formal structure for Sunmark’s community giving in the hopes of increasing the ways that we meet the community’s changing needs and inspiring others to step up as good corporate citizens.”
In keeping with these aspirations, scholarship applicants were asked to write a brief essay on the importance of community and the role of local business.
Scholarship winner Victoria Maddalone, who is attending Saint John Fisher College in Rochester, NY and is planning to major in business management wrote, “Our local businesses help bring our community to life. They are the key reason why we have a second definition to the word community. Our businesses bring people together. They allow us to express and share out common interests with each other. Our businesses make our community, a community.”
Scholarship winner Liana Sinnott, who is attending Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA and is planning to major in business wrote, “Local business play an important role in the community, promoting both the economy and the communities’ spirit. Communities are always helping encourage and support local entrepreneurs so that they can follow their dreams and open their own businesses. These local businesses are essential to communities, providing jobs and boosting the local economy.”
In previous years, Sunmark’s golf tournament has raised significant donations in recent years for diverse organizations including the Arthritis Foundation NENY Chapter, the Fisher House at Stratton VA Medical Center in Albany and Sunnyview Rehabilitation Hospital in Schenectady.
