Make a secure donation via Paypal to Harry and Eleanor D. Nelson Vacaville Endowment Fund.
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Eligibility and Guidelines links below:
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Congratulations to these eight 2022 Nelson Fund scholarship winners, and their families! We wish them every possible success as they embark on the next chapter of their lives!
Harry and Eleanor D. Nelson Scholarship - Four recipients, each will receive a $20,000 scholarship, payable at $5,000 over four years.
Grace B. Powell Vacaville High School Scholarship - One recipient will receive a $20,000 scholarship, payable at $5,000 over four years.
Auldin Briggs Achievement Scholarship - Three recipients, each will receive a $2,500 scholarship, a one-time payment.
For the past two years, due to COVID-19 constraints and considerations, SCF had to make changes to our 'normal' Scholarship Fund Cycle and procedures. We celebrated the Class of 2020 and 2021 graduates by offering a larger number of Nelson Fund scholarships to eligible applicants. SCF was not able to provide 4-year automatically renewable Harry and Eleanor D. Nelson scholarships to the class of 2020 or 2021 recipients. The Briggs, Powell, and Harry and Eleanor D. Nelson Scholarships were awarded at $2,500 each; all 2020 and 2021 recipients who meet the annual renewal requirements are eligible to re-apply for additional scholarship payments of $2,500 annually (through 2024).
All Scholarship recipients must complete and return a Student Enrollment Verification Form. Students awarded a Nelson 4-year (renewable) scholarship are required to submit a verification form each year, to receive renewal payments. The 2022-2023 form will be made available in May for eligible renewal recipients to download and submit. Questions about the form or process should be sent to scholarships@solanocf.org.
2019 NELSON FUND SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENTS
Originally named “Vacaville Community Foundation” by Harry and Eleanor D. Nelson in 1967, this fund focused on benefitting Vacaville residents. Technically not a “community foundation,” but a private foundation, the Nelsons promoted education through the granting of scholarships to seniors in Vacaville high schools for college and postgraduate study. The secondary purpose was, and still is to promote public recreation, preservation of the environment, and preservation of historical records and relics.
In 2008, this private foundation dissolved and moved the assets to a new endowed scholarship fund at the Solano Community Foundation. SCF is now the successor and administrator of The Harry and Eleanor D. Nelson Vacaville Endowment Fund and their scholarship program.
Historically, most of the funds distributed have been as scholarship awards. Initially, grants made were one-time, non-renewable awards of a few hundred dollars to a handful of students.
Harry Nelson graduated from the University of California at Davis and was an agriculturalist with landholdings in the Vacaville area. His wife, Eleanor Dexter Nelson, a native of Lodi, graduated from the University of California at Berkeley. She began teaching in Vacaville in 1920 and retired from teaching Spanish and English at Vacaville High School in 1951. During her "retirement," Mrs. Nelson devoted her energies to community service, including inauguration of a city recreational program for youth, the organization of Fiesta Days, and the establishment of the Vacaville Museum.