Community Foundation Tampa Bay looks to build on record year for scholarships

Sickles High grad Sophia De Leon remembers the class that inspired her to pursue a career in teaching.

“It was the early childhood education class my senior year,” she says. “We had a preschool, and the kids were there for half a day. Being in the class working with them for two and a half hours every day, I noticed how much kids learn, and how quickly they can pick up routines and understand what’s asked of them. It was really amazing to see how kids who would come in crying, sobbing every day at first, would, over two months, learn the routines, how to participate, how to work with other kids. I just loved how fast they learn, how much you can teach them, and how willing to learn they are at such a young age.”

Today, De Leon, a 2024 Sickles grad, is at her dream college, New York University, studying to be a teacher. A scholarship administered by Community Foundation Tampa Bay helps pay for her meal plan and housing.

“It’s been a great help because New York is so expensive,” she says.

De Leon is one of more than 550 students who received over $2 million combined in college scholarships through Community Foundation Tampa Bay and its network of charitable fundholders in a record-setting 2025. The Community Foundation is currently accepting applications for the next cycle of scholarships through February 3rd.

Providing a hand up

Community Foundation Tampa Bay launched in 1990 to support philanthropy and nonprofit organizations across the region. A fundholder working through the foundation established its first scholarship fund the next year. Today,Community Foundation Tampa Bay manages more than 130 funds for scholarships. The fundholders behind the scholarships include individuals, family foundations, businesses, and community organizations. 

“We have a pretty large number of scholarships, and each fund has different eligibility and a different purpose,” says Community Foundation Director, Scholarships Lindsey Tindall. “It could be a family creating a fund to honor a relative, or a business that wants to give scholarships to their employees or their employees’ children. The fundholders are really engaged. They want to feel personally connected. They want to see the students they’re supporting. Some sit on the scholarship committees.”

The fundholders determine the academic standards and requirements to qualify for their scholarships and the rules regarding renewals. Working with Community Foundation Tampa Bay, they are also able to tailor their particular scholarships to go to students in a certain area of study or graduates from a specific high school.

For example, De Leon’s scholarship is for Sickles graduates studying for a career in teaching. She says earmarking a scholarship for future teachers is an encouraging show of support for the vital but often maligned profession. 

“There are not a lot of scholarships for education majors,” De Leon says. “Going into education is not something that people normally say ‘yay’ about. The field can be rocky, and there are issues with teacher pay and benefits. I feel like this scholarship makes my education, and what I’m choosing to pursue, more worthwhile. I know that people outside of my family and friends understand how important teachers are, and how important it is to get people who are passionate back in the field.”

The scholarship comes through an endowed fund at Community Foundation Tampa Bay that carries on the work of the 3E Academic Foundation, a now-closed grassroots nonprofit organization whose members were determined to see the group’s impact continue after it dissolved. It’s a unique story of philanthropy that contributed to the Community Foundation’s record scholarship year.

Enrich, empower, educate  

Back in 2004, residents of North Tampa’s University Village (later Unisen Senior Living) retirement community established the 3E Academic Foundation to provide college scholarships to the facility’s employees. 

“They were having trouble keeping dining room staff; there was a lot of turnover,” says Ron Day, who served as the 3E Academic Foundation’s final board president. “A lot of the staff were college students. We said, ‘Why don’t we offer them scholarships and tie it to their employment to see if we can retain people a little longer?’”

A couple of sizable donations built the nonprofit’s coffers. But Day says 3E largely funded its scholarships with money raised through monthly used furniture sales that its members put on. Over the next two decades, the volunteer retirees behind the nonprofit added a classroom grant initiative for nearby Muller Elementary Magnet School and expanded the scholarship program several times to help more people attend college.

“One of the unique things about University Village/Unisen Senior Living is that we had a large number of residents who were former professors, teachers, and community leaders,” Day says. “They just had a heart and vision for education. That’s really what our 3E Academic Foundation name grew from. We wanted to enrich lives. We wanted to empower people to take a step forward, maybe they’ll be the first people in their family to go to college. And then, of course, to educate. Those are the three Es -enrich, empower, and educate.”

Former Hillsborough County Public Schools Superintendent Walter Sickles and his wife, Janet, a former classroom teacher, were residents. In their honor, the foundation added the scholarship for Sickles High graduates who plan to go into teaching. One year, their scholarship committee interviewed five students and decided to give a scholarship to each of them.

The nonprofit University Area Community Development Corporation works to improve the quality of life in a hardscrabble North Tampa neighborhood, so the 3E foundation added a scholarship for Wharton, Freedom, or Chamberlin high grads, with special consideration for students who have participated in University Area CDC programs and live in the area. Day recalls a scholarship interview where the student was an immigrant from Venezuela living in the University Area neighborhood. 

“His essay was in Spanish and translated into English,” Day recalls. “He brought his mother to his interview for support. And he had planned out how he was going to go through school and what he was going to do with his life. It was a wonderful experience to see how he was so intent on progressing. It was rather encouraging to see that we could help an immigrant to the U.S. who was going to make a wonderful life for themselves.”

Continuing the mission

In 2020, Tampa Life Plan Village purchased University Village out of bankruptcy and renamed the retirement community Unisen Senior Living. In 2024, Tampa Plan Village filed for bankruptcy. The retirement community closed, its residents scattered to find new places to live, and the 3E Academic Foundation disbanded. But a condition in the nonprofit’s bylaws stated that if the organization dissolved, its assets would transfer to Community Foundation Tampa Bay to carry on the scholarship program. Day says former Florida House Speaker the late Terrell Sessums, who helped write the bylaws, suggested that clause.

“He had the foresight to point us toward the Community Foundation,” Day says.

Fourteen active student scholarships transferred over to Community Foundation Tampa Bay. The Community Foundation used 3E’s remaining assets to establish two endowed funds that will continue to provide scholarships for decades to come. 

“They came to us, and we were able to set up funds to continue their legacy,” Tindall says. “It was really a silver lining that they could continue to make an impact when they were all going through such a tough time. They were losing their homes, needed to find new places to live, and they were just worried about these students. They wanted to make sure they could honor the scholarship renewals for the students they were supporting and be able to continue supporting students in the future. They reach out often and ask for updates on students.” 

The Community Foundation produces an annual report on the 3E Academic Foundation scholarship programs, complete with pictures of the students and updates on them. Day says a private Facebook page providing former Unisen residents with updates on the scholarship program and the students has about 100 members. Every year, one former resident sends money to the scholarship fund as a donation in memory of her husband.

“It’s really gratifying to me, and to many of our residents, especially those who’ve been on the board, to see that the labor that went into all those monthly furniture sales is still working,” Day says. “It’s producing what we intended it to produce. And now, it’s preserved in such a way that it’s never going to go away. It’s going to keep on going, helping people get a leg up. Many of the people we gave money to were the first person in their family who ever went to college.”

A noteworthy year

On top of the record for the total number and dollar amount of scholarship awards, there were noteworthy additions and enhancements in 2025. At the start of the year, Community Foundation Tampa Bay launched a universal application on its website that allows students to apply for  more than 30 scholarships at once, saving them the time spent filling out the same information for multiple applications. 

Tindall says a student’s information is evaluated against the eligibility criteria of the scholarship  opportunities in the universal application, and  students are shown the scholarships that are a match. Students then continue the application process for those scholarships. In the first year, 440 students used the universal application to apply for an average of three scholarships each. Community Foundation Tampa Bay awarded scholarships to 118 of those students. 

The year also saw the rollout of a noteworthy new scholarship opportunity. After administering scholarships for approximately three and a half decades, Community Foundation Tampa Bay started a scholarship fund of its own in 2025. Tindall says the Community Foundation launched the program to support students who have financial need and score well with the scholarship committee, but don’t fit the eligibility criteria of the donor-established scholarships. The Community Foundation awarded 14 scholarships in the fund’s first year.

“We want to keep growing it,” Tindall says. 

Overall, the scholarships available through Community Foundation Tampa Bay range from $500 to $8,000, with an average amount of $3,000. Some scholarships are one-time awards; others are renewable. In general, students from Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, Hernando, and Citrus counties are eligible to apply, although some scholarships have more specific residency requirements. Graduating high school seniors, college students, and individuals returning to school may apply. In addition to college scholarships, there are scholarships supporting certification and technical programs. 

For more information, go to Community Foundation Tampa Bay scholarships

This story is produced through an underwriting agreement between Community Foundation Tampa Bay and 83 Degrees Media