This scholarship honors the mothers of the donors. Carrie Gibson Esarey, who was raised by a single mother, taught for many years in a one-room schoolhouse, and Dorothy Neland was also passionate about education. In her quiet way she became a champion of women's independence, and her recipe for achieving this was education, education, education. With her encouragement, her two daughters were the first women in the family to earn college degrees. The donors would like this scholarship to help a female parent who has financial need, with an additional preference for a student who has a disability or whose child has a disability. The scholarship can go to either an undergraduate or graduate student, can be renewed if the student does well, and if none of these preferences is possible can be given to any female student with financial need.