Newsletter to Scholarship Contrubutors
The Ralston Family
August, 2001
Trent & Rita
Stephanie & Rakesh
News of the latest scholarship award can be found on the Awards Section.
We love hearing from you and appreciate everything that you have done for us. We know it is God's blessing that each of you are part of our lives. Thank you for being part of Jeff's life as well. What wonderful friends you are!
Trent and Rita Ralston
Stephanie and Rakesh Khurana
Rarely are any of us privileged to understand the true and lasting impact of our actions. Undoubtedly you are not aware of the wonderful healing and uplifting effect your recent kindness had on the lives of the entire Ralston family. Losing Jeff was unbearably tragic, but your care and compassion sustained each of us in our sorrow, providing us lifelines of opportunity to see how special Jeff was in your lives as well.
Support came in so many forms: condolence cards, mass cards, beautiful flowers and planters, personal visits, letters and phone calls offering compassion and shared memories of Jeff. Many generous contributions were made to the scholarship fund at St. Mary's High School in Annapolis. The NASSCO trade association scholarship was renamed in Jeff's memory and generous contributions were made to that fund as well. Your kindness and generosity was and continues to be overwhelming. Your support enables us to maintain a positive attitude, to begin accepting our loss and to work toward rebuilding our lives again. We couldn't have begun to endure the unending pain without you. We send you our heartfelt thanks.
Scholarship Update
The fund for the Jeffrey D. Ralston Scholarship at St. Mary's High School has exceeded all expectations. Very generous contributions came from family members, friends and business associates of both industries with which Jeff was associated. The corporation of Computer Associates matched 2 to 1 the contributions from Jeff's friends and associates at CA. It is amazing that the contributed amount has now grown to over $33,000. Being managed as an individual endowment fund under the auspices of St. Mary's Schools, the fund maintains the charity status of St. Mary's for tax purposes, and has been invested under the umbrella of St. Mary's investment advisors with safety and conservative growth as it's mission. The goal is to provide for the continuation and growth of the fund itself and to each year provide one or two scholarships of $1000 each. As the fund grows, additional awards will be considered.
The scholarships are to be awarded according to merit to one or two college-bound graduating seniors of St. Mary's High School who have earned at least a 2.5 GPA. Applicants are to be evaluated on demonstrated qualities of ethics, generosity, integrity, community service, leadership and scholarship, qualities mentioned so frequently by those remembering Jeff during his life. A biographical sketch is provided to relate Jeff's special characteristics to the scholarship applicants.
As mentioned, the endowment is intended to support an ongoing scholarship. As the scholarship is awarded each year and gains its own identity, it will hopefully be viewed as a goal all St. Mary's students would aspire to obtain, not only those with the highest GPA's that traditionally earn scholarships, but all students who would hope to achieve the "good person" award this purports to be. Being an inspiration for students to seek such a goal is a major objective of this scholarship.
If you are interested in the criteria, application form, and the associated biographical sketch of Jeff, you will find the information posted at this website. We hope to update this site each year with news of recent scholarship awards.
The fund for the Jeffrey D. Ralston Scholarship at St. Mary's High School has exceeded all expectations. Very generous contributions came from family members, friends and business associates of both industries with which Jeff was associated. The corporation of Computer Associates matched 2 to 1 the contributions from Jeff's friends and associates at CA. It is amazing that the contributed amount has now grown to over $33,000. Being managed as an individual endowment fund under the auspices of St. Mary's Schools, the fund maintains the charity status of St. Mary's for tax purposes, and has been invested under the umbrella of St. Mary's investment advisors with safety and conservative growth as it's mission. The goal is to provide for the continuation and growth of the fund itself and to each year provide one or two scholarships of $1000 each. As the fund grows, additional awards will be considered.
The scholarships are to be awarded according to merit to one or two college-bound graduating seniors of St. Mary's High School who have earned at least a 2.5 GPA. Applicants are to be evaluated on demonstrated qualities of ethics, generosity, integrity, community service, leadership and scholarship, qualities mentioned so frequently by those remembering Jeff during his life. A biographical sketch is provided to relate Jeff's special characteristics to the scholarship applicants.
As mentioned, the endowment is intended to support an ongoing scholarship. As the scholarship is awarded each year and gains its own identity, it will hopefully be viewed as a goal all St. Mary's students would aspire to obtain, not only those with the highest GPA's that traditionally earn scholarships, but all students who would hope to achieve the "good person" award this purports to be. Being an inspiration for students to seek such a goal is a major objective of this scholarship.
If you are interested in the criteria, application form, and the associated biographical sketch of Jeff, you will find the information posted at this website. We hope to update this site each year with news of recent scholarship awards.