Meet Our Donors
On behalf of Spelman College, we would like to thank all of our
current donors for their generosity and support. Here are some of their stories.
Jerri DeVard: The Heart of a Philanthropist
By Denise McFall
Jerri DeVard, C’79 had climbed to the top of the ladder of corporate success when she elected to step down from her position as Senior Vice President of Marketing and Brand Management of Verizon in January 2007. As the wife of Gregg Smith and the mother of 17 year-old Brooke and 14 year-old Alexander, she was fully engaged in juggling the demands of family with those of her high profile career when she chose to follow her heart—to do more for her family, herself and the other great love of her life—Spelman College.
For Jerri DeVard, life always has been more about who you are than about what you do. Even now, the instructive words of her mother and “life coach,” Dr. Jean DeVard-Kamp, guide her steps as she “continues to demonstrate high levels of understanding, gratitude and respect to and for others—helping to “push and pull the wagon along the way,” so that all of us might achieve.
Through it all, Ms. DeVard has never forgotten the greatest gift given to her by Spelman—the opportunity to share in a lifelong sisterhood of former roommates and classmates who have become “forever friends,” “midnight-hour girlfriends,” women to whom she is bonded for life. All of them are cherished confidantes who remain only a phone call away, her Spelman sisters with whom she still shares the “4-1-1,” as well as life’s triumphs, trials and tribulations.
Ronda Stryker: The Heart of a Benefactor
Member, Board of Trustees
As a devoted trustee and longtime friend of Spelman College, Ronda Stryker is as passionate about giving to the College as many of its alumnae. Inspired by a keynote address delivered by President Emeritus Johnnetta B. Cole in the mid 90s, Ms. Stryker later accepted an invitation from President Cole to travel from her Kalamazoo, Mi., hometown, where she was deeply involved in several women-centered community service projects, to visit the Spelman campus.
“It’s difficult to explain the feeling I had when I first set foot on the Spelman campus, says Ms. Stryker. “All I can say is it felt comfortable . . . like coming home. There was an immediate emotional connection I had with this college because of its commitment to the education of women. It’s something I felt then and still feel today, each and every time I have the opportunity to visit.”
Long before Ms. Stryker graciously accepted Spelman’s invitation to join the Board of Trustees in 1997, she began to create a remarkable legacy of philanthropic support to the College. Beginning with a major contribution to the last capital campaign, her gift was also one of the first and most generous private donations made to the “Revival of the Spirit” campaign that successfully raised funds for the renovation of Sisters Chapel.
Johnnie Hunter Foxworth, C’43
Johnnie Hunter Foxworth’s trek from Bridgeport, Ct., to the Atlanta of the 1940s was, indeed, a tale of two cities. Not only did her pursuit of a college education south of the Mason-Dixon line present a journey of great distance, it was also a life-transforming adventure that would take her far a field from the familiar regional, cultural, social and political mores with which she had grown up.
On the advice a Morris Brown College alumna, the secretary at her local YWCA, Mrs. Foxworth enrolled at Spelman. Never having had a Black teacher, or more than two or three Black classmates at one time, her Spelman College experience opened her eyes to the existence of a critical mass of Black intelligentsia—a wealth of talented writers, scholars, researchers and students of color. She also had not experienced the sting of legally imposed segregation. While at Spelman, however, she learned, first-hand, what it felt like to sit at the back of the bus and gained exposure to some of the other indignities of Jim Crow—valuable life-lessons that contributed to her developing a social consciousness steeped in personal experience.
Ms. Ella Mae Gaines: A Loyal Alumna’s Gift that Keeps on Giving
A fourth-generation Atlanta native, Ms. Ella Mae Gaines was accepted to Spelman College on July 31, 1944. Her application for admission to Spelman stated, “I wish to come to Spelman, because I feel there is no other college anywhere in the world finer for a girl to receive training to prepare herself for higher gains in life. I have always looked forward to entering Spelman College, because Spelman students have a certain air about them that denotes character and culture. I would naturally like to fall in line.”
She fell in line immediately, graduated in 1949 and went on to achieve those higher gains in life. She earned a M.S. in library science from Atlanta University in 1951, school library certification from Rutgers University in 1956 and a J.D. from Atlanta Law School in 1979. A devoted family woman, she married Clayton R. Yates with whom she had one daughter, Jerri Sydnor Lee.
Her impressive career encompassed university, public, medical and special librarianship, as well as being graduate librarian school lecturer, library consultant and research writer. Mrs. Yates held positions at the Brooklyn Public Library and several New Jersey Public Library Systems before becoming assistant director of the Atlanta Public Library System in 1972. She was also a visiting professor at Atlanta University’s Graduate School of Library and Information Science at this time.
Former Faculty Member Remembers
The Ida Gartrell Peterson and Roosevelt Peterson Endowed Scholarship
was established under the terms of the will of the late Dr. Ida
Gartrell Peterson, C’46. Dr. Peterson was a former Spelman College faculty
member. Distributions from the trust totaled $87,000 to date and
will provide scholarships for students pursuing a degree in education.
A Friend's Planned Gift: A Source for Increased Scholarship Support
Alumnae and friends of the College are providing scholarship assistance
for Spelman students through planned gifts. Cherie Stawasz, the owner
of a New York public relations firm, had never visited Spelman’s campus
nor was she acquainted with a professor or alumnae of the College.
However, she heard of Spelman and identified with its mission to
empower young women of color. While terminally ill, she made provisions
for the College to receive a bequest of $737,188 for scholarship
support from her estate. Ms. Stawasz succumbed to cancer in 2004.
Fredrick D. Pugh, II: A Morehouse Man’s Gift to Spelman
In February 2008, Fredrick D. Pugh, II, a Morehouse College graduate contacted the Office of Planned Giving at Spelman College stating his intent to make a gift to the school. While every gift to the College is special, Mr. Pugh’s number stands out. It’s not the amount of his gift, but the age at which he has made it. At 23 years-old, Mr. Pugh has become a member of the Guardian Society, an honor reserved for Spelman donors who have made provisions for the College through planned gifts.
“I figured it’s better to get an early start,” says Mr. Pugh, who is a commissioned officer in the Coast Guard. Motivated by his job working in waterside port security for New York Harbor, Mr. Pugh began researching viable estate planning options. “I talked to some attorneys that came by the base and started looking up planned giving on line. It was really easy.”
Mr. Pugh graduated from Morehouse in 2006 with a degree in psychology. While there, the Oakland, California, native minored in early childhood education at Spelman. “Because Morehouse and Spelman are brother and sister schools, unofficially, I figured if you give to one you might as well give to both,” he says, explaining his reasoning for giving to Spelman. “I definitely would not have had the same college experience had Spelman not been there so the decision was pretty simple to me. Both Morehouse and Spelman have provided so much in making me who I am; and I realize that we have to keep them alive. They are private schools and no one else is going to give to them unless the alumni do… I decided I would do my part.”
Spelman College
350 Spelman Lane, S.W., Box 1551
Atlanta, GA 30314
(404) 270-5126 | Fax: (404) 270-5050
