Expanding access and creating opportunity by investing in people, organizations and communities that were important to Jessie Ball duPont

Jessie Ball duPont Fund Names Two New Fellows

JACKSONVILLE, Florida (April 28, 2011) – Trustees of the Jessie Ball duPont Fund have selected two students to receive Jessie Ball duPont Fund Fellowships, providing a two-year period of work and study in philanthropy and charitable work in the American South.

The fellowships were awarded to:

• Kiara Boone, a senior majoring in Political Science at Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina.
• Virginia Hodges, a senior majoring in Economics with a minor in Poverty and Human Capability at Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Virginia.

The Jessie Ball duPont Fund Fellowship program is designed to provide practical experience for students interested in careers in the independent sector, either with nonprofit organizations, faith-based organizations or philanthropic organizations.

The fellows work as members of the Fund staff with exposure to foundation governance, grantmaking, governmental oversight and industry events. They also participate in a nonprofit certificate course at a university.

Fellows are selected from a field of applicants nominated by the academic deans and presidents of the colleges and universities that are eligible for support from the Jessie Ball duPont Fund.

Boone, who is from Macon, Mississippi, studied abroad at the University of Cape Coast in Ghana and volunteered as an accounting intern at the Progressive Women’s Credit Union in Ghana. She also has served as a summer intern with the National Coalition for the Homeless in Washington, D.C.

Hodges, whose home is in Martinsville, Virginia, has had summer internships at Bread for the City, in Washington D.C., and at the Georgia Health Policy Center in Atlanta. She studied Public Health at the Danish Institute for Study Abroad.

Boone and Hodges comprise the third class of fellows at the Jessie Ball duPont Fund. Their predecessors have gone on to join the Peace Corps, work in the nonprofit sector and attend graduate school.

The Jessie Ball duPont Fund makes grants to more than 330 eligible organizations identified by Mrs. duPont in her will. The Fund has assets of more than $281 million and has awarded $303 million in grants since 1977.

CONTACT:

Sherry Magill, president
904-353-0890 / smagill@dupontfund.org

Mary Kress Littlepage, KBT & Associates
904-384-8496 / mekl@comcast.net