Beginning this June, graduates living in the North Queens Community School District can get help paying for their post-secondary education.

A new trust has been established by the John Cormac Carten Foundation which will award up to $1,000 USD to any student who meets the eligibility criteria.

Foundation trustees Rick and Liz Carten named the fund in honour of Rick’s great-great-grandfather John Cormac Carten who emigrated from Ireland to Liverpool in the 1830s.

Rick Carten, who lives in Virginia, says he feels a connection to North Queens and wanted to do something for the people living there.

“My wife and I do not have any children,” said Carten, “so this was my way of passing on some of my good fortune to my ancestral homeland.”

Carten has been looking into his roots and learned his grandfather prospered in the shipping trade before moving to Halifax in the 1850s.

The elder Cormac had a dozen children and many of his eight daughters married local men with family names that are familiar in North Queens such as Baxter, Devenney, Ennis, McBride, and Nixon.

The last Carten descendent, Thomas Carten ran a general store in South Brookfield from around 1933 until his death in 1960.

Rick Carten says the John Cormac Carten Foundation is modelled after the highly successful J.D. Shatford Memorial Trust which has benefitted over 1,000 students around Hubbards for the past 60 years.

The scholarships are open to any students living in the North Queens Community School catchment area, regardless of if they attend that school so long as they graduate and can show they’ve been accepted at a university or college.

The same student can receive an award from the foundation up to four times during their post-secondary studies.

Students can apply through their guidance councillors and through the John Cormac Carten Foundation website.

Rick Carten is hopeful he will have the opportunity to attend the graduation ceremony at NQCS this June to meet some of the prospective recipients.

“I want to make sure that no one gets left behind who really deserves and qualifies for a scholarship,” said Carten. “I think it’s really important for them to at least have that opportunity to follow their dreams and their passions.”

E-mail: edhalversonnews@gmail.com
Twitter: @edwardhalverson

To listen to the broadcast of this story, press play below.