About Us
The Bernie Scholarship Awards Program is a component fund of the Greater Washington Community Foundation.
The Bernie Scholarship Awards Program
Founded: 1995
Co-Founders: Bernie Tetreault, Jim Brodsky, the late Rev. Lon Dring and Barbara Heyman, Joyce Siegel
Our Mission: Provide financial assistance for college or workforce development training programs to graduating high school seniors and other adults who are very low-income and live in subsidized housing in Montgomery County, Maryland.
How We Started: When Bernie Tetreault retired after 24 years of service as Executive Director of the Housing Opportunities Commission (HOC), he and some of his friends wanted to come up with a unique way to celebrate and continue to give back to the community that he had served for so long. In 1995, they established the Bernie Education Fund, a precursor to The Bernie Scholarship Awards Program, which is now a 501(c)3 component fund of the Greater Washington Community Foundation.
Management (volunteers): Board of Directors and Advisory Board
Nancy Scull, Board Secretary, was Coordinator of the Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS) Program at the Housing Opportunities Commission (HOC), Montgomery County’s public housing agency, for 22 years until 2015, when she retired. Nancy created a Maryland, D.C. and Northern Virginia FSS Coordinators’ Roundtable Group for information-sharing, client and program advocacy. Partnering with the annual Capitol Hill Legislative day of NAHRO (National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Organizations), Nancy lead up to 50 advocacy teams of FSS staff and FSS clients to tell their stories at annual meetings on Capitol Hill with Representatives’ and Senators’ low-income subsidized housing and welfare legislative staff from most states. In 2014 Nancy was awarded by Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett the Roscoe Nix Distinguished Community Leadership Award. She holds a B.A. in French and Secondary Education from American University, M.Ed. in Educational Psychology from University of Hawaii and a Master of Science in French and Linguistics from Georgetown University.