Featured Scholarship/Friends of Joshua P. Darden Jr.
Friends and Colleagues Honor Life-changing Auto Dealer With Scholarship
Forty friends and former co-workers have created the Friends of Joshua P. Darden Jr. Scholarship at the Hampton Roads Community Foundation. The scholarship was announced on February 4, 2010.
The new scholarship fund at the foundation honors Joshua Darden (second from left). Donors include Harry Lester (left), Alan Nordlinger and Charles Barker. Click here to see a group photo of automobile dealers supporting the scholarship. All credit Darden with helping them early in their careers.
The donors are contributing more than $1.2 million to start a scholarship fund to help students graduating from public schools in South Hampton Roads who will attend college. Of the 40 donors, 20 are connected to the automobile industry. Most began their careers at Colonial Auto Group, which Darden owned until 1995. Darden helped many of them start their own dealerships or move on to management careers with other auto companies. A group of employees at Colonial Chevrolet and Colonial Cadillac are among the donors. Their contributions to the scholarship fund are being matched by Hendrick Automotive in Charlotte, which now owns the Colonial dealerships in Norfolk. The Virginia Automobile Dealers Association also is a contributor to the scholarship.
|
Charles Barker, chairman of Charles Barker Automotive, is among the former employees donating to the fund who consider Darden their mentor. He credits Darden and his company with “developing more car dealers than other single operation in the country.” That effort helped Darden be named Time magazine’s Automobile Dealer of the Year in 1986.
“I made a lot of phone calls about the scholarship fund, and everyone I called said they wanted to be part of this,” Barker says. “That shows the respect the people who worked for him have for Josh.”
The first donor to the new scholarship fund was Alan L. Nordlinger, senior vice president of S.L. Nusbaum Realty in Norfolk. He also considers Darden his mentor even though he never worked in the automotive business. “If I ever need advice on anything, Josh is the person I turn to for his good, sound judgment.” Nordlinger says he and his wife Susan gave the initial gift to start the scholarship fund because “Josh has done so much over the years for our community. He has given time, energy and dollars. Someone who has done so much should be honored.”
Darden has a long history of community support. He is a co-founder of the ACCESS College Foundation, which has helped more than 30,000 area students attend college. He also is helped found the regional CIVIC Leadership Institute and chaired the board of The Norfolk Foundation (now Hampton Roads Community Foundation) for 10 years. He has led state commissions and been rector of the University of Virginia.
The Friends of Joshua P. Darden Jr. Scholarship joins more than 50 scholarship funds administered by the Foundation. In 2010 Foundation scholarships are helping more than 325 students attend 65 different colleges and universities. For information on applying for a scholarship click here.
Confirmed in compliance with national standards for U.S. community foundations.