Community Legacy of Hope Award

Open to full and part-time students enrolled in year 1 of any program offered at the Lunenburg Campus.

Application assessment will consider

• Financial need
• Commitment to building a strong career path and helping others
• Demonstration of how student has overcome significant barriers in life
• Good academic standing
• Self-identification: female
• Resident of Lunenburg County
• Preference: single/sole parent

About the award
The Community Legacy of Hope Award has been established in memory of Margaret Mason and celebrates her life. 

Margaret Mason was the eldest of 9 children in a working class family in depression and wartime Manitoba. Her father’s employment was irregular and marginal; he died when Margaret was 20 and her youngest sister was 4. She and the next eldest daughter moved out of the family home so that their incomes wouldn’t be subtracted from the meager support to which her mother was entitled. She worked three jobs and still managed to find time to help parent her siblings. She believed that frugality and hard work were primary virtues but also recognized that the community needed to rally around those to whom fate had dealt a cruel blow. She found community in her church and in her family, which she repaid with devotion. She worked tirelessly to sustain relationships through acts, both large and small, of kindness and respect. She organized picnics, potlucks, Sunday school classes and thrift sales. She spotted and collected bargains for all she knew and loved, and she loved widely. She was a passionate reader and seized on any opportunity to share the pleasure of reading with any child who would listen. She recognized talent and hard work and relished beauty.

Margaret believed in fairness and generosity. She was a proud Nova Scotian for nearly 50 years and would be pleased to think that she’d left a legacy in the community that would nurture hope, talent and hard work. Margaret was a thoughtful, inquisitive Christian who contributed her considerable artistic and organizational skills to various church activities throughout her life.