The new scholarship expands support for local students from rural or farming communities who face financial barriers to nursing education.
The scholarship was created through a $100,000 gift from Doreen J. Stewart, a retired registered nurse with strong roots in the Peterborough area.
“Thanks to Mrs. Stewart’s generosity, this scholarship will help remove barriers for students who wish to join our programs and become the nurses of tomorrow – compassionate and critical thinkers who create social change through the promotion of health and well-being,” says Dr. Hugo Lehmann, Trent/Fleming School of Nursing (TFSON) acting dean.
Doreen’s family faced financial hardship when she was growing up in the farming community of South Monaghan largely due to medical costs for her sisters Ruth and Shirley who had juvenile diabetes in the days before national healthcare.
“It is my hope that this scholarship helps bring the best and brightest minds to study at the Trent/Fleming School of Nursing,” says Doreen. “Financial hardship should not impede the education and training of capable and compassionate people for careers in nursing, and the pandemic has shone a light on the critical importance of nursing as a career.”
Doreen was able to pursue her dream of nursing. She graduated with her registered nurse qualifications from the Peterborough Civic Hospital in 1964, Occupational Health in 1979, and General Studies, Science in 2005. Her career spanned emergency and intensive care units across Canada, U.S. and South America.
The Doreen (Larmer) Stewart Nursing Scholarship will be distributed annually, with up to three awards worth $2,500 each available for full-time nursing students in any year of study in the TFSON.
The scholarship will offer financial assistance to qualified students: those with demonstrated financial need, with longstanding connections in the greater Peterborough community and surrounding rural areas, and who intend to complete a Bachelor’s degree in the study of nursing and go on to a nursing career.
