Pinellas Times

St. Petersburg College issued the following announcement.

Adrian Bright was feeling lost, sitting in a bed in the CASA women’s shelter, where she was staying with her daughters after fleeing an abusive marriage.

“I looked in the mirror and said, ‘God, what do you want me to do now?’,” she said. “I heard a voice that said, ‘Remember your gifts. Go to school and be ready when I call you.’ A week later, I was enrolled in my first LPN classes, which I successfully completed in 2015.”

Later, when contemplating earning her RN degree, she worried over the time it would take, the cost, and even her ability to complete the program. But she enrolled at SPC, and after applying for financial aid, the SPC Foundation offered her the Dr. Gerald F. Whittaker Endowed Scholarship in Nursing, which benefits Black students in nursing programs.

“Without that scholarship, I couldn’t have done it, because I would have needed to work full time to take care of my daughters,” she said.

As an opportunity to highlight the impact their financial support has had on St. Petersburg College, Dr. Gerald Whittaker, along with his wife, Betty Gaston Whittaker, visited SPC’s Health Education Center on Wednesday, December 2, where they were given a tour of the nursing labs and shown demonstrations of the equipment and computer programs used to prepare students to practice on real patients. After their tour, they were surprised with a permanent plaque placed in the HEC’s media center honoring the impact they have made with their contributions.

Over the past three years, The Whittakers have created endowed scholarships at St. Petersburg College in both their names, totaling $521,500 to date. Mrs. Whittaker retired from her position as librarian at SPC’s Gibbs campus in 2015, even further sealing their dedication to SPC students. In 2019-20, Dr. Whittaker made additional gifts to help grow the funds in order to impact more SPC nursing students.

At the ceremony, SPC President Dr. Tonjua Williams noted the influence of their generosity.

“The support of donors like Dr. and Mrs. Whittaker, who learned early on the importance a good education, provides SPC the ability to change students’ lives,” Williams said.

Jesse Turtle, SPC’s Vice President of Institutional Advancement and Executive Director of the Foundation, noted that since both Whittakers come from a long line of nurses, they honor the memories of their loved ones with their gifts to SPC’s Nursing program.

“The dedication of their mothers and sisters, paired with their desire to change the lives of African American students, is why the Whittakers chose to honor them by establishing a Nursing scholarship,” Turtle said.

“Thank you for honoring us,” Dr. Whitaker said. “Bringing us to the light shows what can be achieved with small means.”

After moving the room to tears with her story, Bright offered her gratitude to the Whitakers.

“Your generosity helped me to overcome the failed experiments I had in my life and fall forward,” she said. “Your gift allowed me to focus more on my education and studying, and I thank you for giving me the opportunity to show my daughters that dreams can come true.”

Original source can be found here.