On 10th Anniversary, Mother’s Day Scholarship Continues to Nurture

In the decade since it was first established, Hunter’s Mother’s Day Scholarship Fund has raised more than $4.5 million to help deserving students. This year alone, more than 175 students will receive assistance from Mother’s Day donors.

For the past eight years, in honor of Robert Jacobson’s mother, Dorothy Epstein ’33, Jacobson and Marilyn Gelber have helped Mother’s Day Scholars. Epstein lived a long, eventful life as a social activist, labor organizer and entrepreneur. Throughout, she was a generous and involved Hunter alumna – one who was voted into the Hall of Fame.

“We began giving to the fund while my mother was still alive,” says Jacobson. “It’s been a very fulfilling way to honor the importance of Hunter in her life.”

Rosa Marte ’16, the current recipient of the Dorothy Epstein scholarship, was born in the Dominican Republic but grew up in Queens. She is majoring in psychology and hopes to pursue a career in physical therapy or social work. This scholarship, she says, is essential to her being able to attend college: “I’m so grateful. I have a job to help with expenses, but the scholarship is really what enables me to go to school here.”

Nellie Gipson ’83 and her husband, Bob, also give generously to the fund. This year they are helping six students attend Hunter. “I was blessed with an education, thanks to people who helped me along the way,” Bob Gipson says. “The future belongs to young people who are able to get an education, and it’s great to be able to help some of them out.”

Therese Ferreira ’15, a senior from Long Island, is one of this year’s Gipson scholars. She is an economics major who would like to become a financial analyst for a public policy institute.

“It was such a relief to get a scholarship,” Ferreira says. “For me this is the difference between attending school part-time and being able to be a full-time student.”