The Josephine Lilly Wolf Memorial Scholarship Foundation began in 2017. Since
inception, the primary goal of the foundation has been to honor the memory of Josephine Lilly
Wolf through college scholarships awarded to students at the Manning’s School in
Westmoreland, Jamaica.
One key aspect of the foundation’s vision has been to involve past and current students in the
work of the foundation and in giving back to their communities. Executing that part of our vision
has taken time, but we are excited to announce the Lilly’s Hands Inspiring Hope Project. Within
this new project, we will endeavor to impact local communities in Jamaica. Information about
Lilly’s Hands can now be found on our website here.
Part of the delay in getting Lilly’s Hands off the ground has been getting our students through
school. As of this summer, we will have seven foundation graduates, which is a huge
accomplishment for the foundation, but more importantly our students. As we add students to
the foundation family, and more of those students graduate, our ability to conduct outreach will
grow exponentially.
Completion of our first Lilly’s Hands outreach coincided with this year’s scholarship interview
process which occurred the week of May 20, however, a significant amount of time and effort
went into executing the outreach well before then. The outreach was successful due to the
efforts of some of our current and graduated students and other volunteers. Saveenia Kelly (our
first student) provided leadership throughout and was supported by Shanique Sommerville,
Trecia Montique, Adrian Stewart, Crystal Whittaker and Drea Maragh.
Our first outreach consisted of a book drive and a short story contest. During the book drive,
over 500 books were collected and sorted for age appropriateness before being provided to
students in underprivileged communities. The drive was a tremendous success. The short story
contest elicited entries from 57 Manning’s students from which three winners were selected. We
held a celebratory event at Manning’s during which the three winners were introduced, and
monetary awards given. The first-place story, “Overcoming the Voice,” was enthusiastically read
by author Deja Bremmer. The second-place winner was Mawuena DaCosta, and the third-place
winner was Lésania Fisher. It was such a pleasure to meet these exceptional writers and their
families.
Read the winning stories here:
One question we were asked frequently during the scholarship interview process that occurred
the day before our event was, “how can I give back to the foundation?” Referencing Lilly’s
Hands to prospective students was an easy answer. Beyond that though, our answer (and
hope) is that our students will help direct and drive such efforts, given their inherent knowledge
of their community’s needs.
We will continue looking for ways to expand the impact our foundation has on our students and
their communities.
Marc Havens
Treasurer
Josephine Lilly Wolf Memorial Scholarship Foundation
A big thank you to everyone that contributed and participated in this year's story competition event.
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