October 2, 1946 – March 3, 2017
The Island Free Press (IFP) is pleased to announce that the Irene Nolan Memorial Scholarship Fund, started through the Outer Banks Community Foundation, was a huge success in its inaugural year.
The scholarship fund is close to its first goal of $25,000, but it needs the community’s help to reach this milestone before the year’s end, so that the first 2023 Irene Nolan Memorial Scholarship recipient will be selected for a potential four-year award.
The Irene Nolan Memorial Scholarship Fund has been a dream for everyone at the IFP, (the local Hatteras and Ocracoke Island paper that Irene co-founded in 2007), since Irene’s untimely death in 2017.
Irene was many things to her Hatteras Island community. She was a mentor, a friend, and an icon, and she was considered the voice of the islands during her decades of work as a local journalist and editor. As such, it was only fitting to start a scholarship in her name for Hatteras and Ocracoke Island students pursuing English-related degrees.
This fund, like most other Community Foundation scholarship funds, will offer up to four years of scholarship funding to each student recipient. In addition, the fund is endowed, meaning that the bulk of its assets will remain invested and only 5% of its earnings will be spent each year. In this way, the fund will be a perpetual source of scholarships for Hatteras and Ocracoke Island students for years to come.
Anyone may contribute to the Irene Nolan Memorial Scholarship Fund by sending a check to the Outer Banks Community Foundation at 13 Skyline Road, Southern Shores, NC, 27949, with the fund name in the memo line, or by making a contribution online at obcf.org/donate-now, and selecting the fund from the searchable funds list.
Everyone at the IFP is excited about this scholarship and the community’s unwavering support, and we look forward to watching the Irene Nolan Memorial Scholarship Fund grow and help more and more students through the coming years.
