{"id":53540,"date":"2018-08-30T09:18:42","date_gmt":"2018-08-30T13:18:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=53540"},"modified":"2021-07-09T16:37:19","modified_gmt":"2021-07-09T20:37:19","slug":"making-a-difference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2018\/08\/30\/making-a-difference\/","title":{"rendered":"Making a difference"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Cynthia Jones, who earned a master’s degree from Wright State, will donate her home to the university to fund a scholarship for students with financial need who are either African American or have a disability.<\/p><\/div>\n

Education has always mattered to Cynthia Jones. Even though neither of her parents graduated from high school, they both instilled in Jones and her eight siblings the importance of education. It is a lesson that she has passed along to her five children, her six grandchildren and her students at Kemp Elementary School in Dayton.<\/p>\n

\u201cEducation will always be the key. That will never change,\u201d said Jones. \u201cYou need to be educated in order to secure a good quality life and a good future for yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones will help educate future Wright State University students through a bequest in her estate. The Wright State University Foundation<\/a> will receive Jones\u2019s home upon her death, which will fund a scholarship for students with financial need who are either African American or have a disability.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a special place in my heart for the students with special needs,\u201d Jones explained. \u201cAnd I know Wright State has a higher percentage of students with disabilities than other colleges. That\u2019s important to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones\u2019s scholarship will also honor the memory of her mother and grandmother.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mom and my grandmother were two of the strongest women that I\u2019ve ever known,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat my mother and grandmother taught me made a difference. This is something that I can do to keep their legacy going.\u201d<\/p>\n

The scholarship is also a way to give back to the university that helped Jones when she was a student.<\/p>\n

After serving 14 years of active duty in the United States Air Force, Jones came to Wright State as a divorced, single mother to earn her master\u2019s degree in teacher education<\/a> and become a teacher.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to do something that I knew would be good for me and my children,\u201d she recalled. \u201cTeaching offered the right schedule for me. I had a passion for it. And I knew it would work well for me as a single parent.\u201d<\/p>\n

As she was working on her degree, one of Jones\u2019s professors recommended her for a scholarship.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was such a blessing,\u201d she said. \u201cI was so surprised that someone chose me to get this scholarship. I thought that was the greatest thing. From that point on, I knew that I was going to do something to give back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Transferring her home to Wright State in her will gives Jones the opportunity to make a significant impact without making a large gift of cash.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople don\u2019t think of the assets that they have that they could leave. It doesn\u2019t have to be sitting in your bank account. There are other things that you can do,\u201d Jones said. \u201cIf what I\u2019m doing as an average school teacher in Dayton Public Schools can make a difference to hundreds, maybe thousands of lives to come, then so can you.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the legacy of three strong women \u2014 Jones, her mother and her grandmother \u2014 will be remembered by future generations of Wright State students.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just want to know that my life makes a difference. Many people think one person doesn\u2019t make a difference. Well, there are hundreds of stories of just one person making a difference,\u201d said Jones. \u201cI feel at peace knowing that there will be students for years to come that will benefit from this one decision that I made. This gift will live on forever.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cynthia Jones will create a scholarship for Wright State students with financial need who are either African American or have a disability. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":53549,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[722,733,2104,2040,2060,744,725,2039,715],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-alumni","category-teacher-education","category-giving","category-graduate","category-education-human-services","category-home-news-sidebar","category-military-veterans","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53540"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53763,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53540\/revisions\/53763"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}