Campus club leaders, who are also scholarship recipients, gather at the DCCC Educational Foundation Scholarship Luncheon with Allyson Gleason (center), DCCC’s Director of Athletics & Campus Engagement. Photo credit: Jim Roese.
The Delaware County Community College (DCCC) Educational Foundation has received an estate gift of $1 million from the late Louise A. Strauss. The gift will establish an endowed scholarship fund for students from Coatesville who wish to attend DCCC.
As the community college of Delaware and Chester Counties, DCCC currently enrolls over 320 students per year who reside within the Coatesville School District. A large number are enrolled in the College’s dual enrollment program, which provides eligible high school students the opportunity to earn college credits while still in high school at a fraction of the standard tuition rates.
The late Louise A. Strauss was a member of a philanthropic family with a deep commitment to learning and to making the world of higher education accessible to others. Strauss’ mother, the late Ione Apfelbaum Strauss, was born and raised in Coatesville. She graduated from the town’s Scott Senior High School and then commuted to Philadelphia on weekdays to the University of Pennsylvania.
Ione Apfelbaum Strauss went on to become the first female president of the University of Pennsylvania’s General Alumni Society—the first woman ever to head a major private university’s alumni society. She also served as an overseer for the School of Arts and Sciences, as a trustee for the University of Pennsylvania Press. She and her late husband, Hilary Strauss, endowed the University of Pennsylvania’s Herbert C. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies. Louise A. Strauss continued her parents’ commitment to the Katz Center, to its collections, and to the field of Jewish studies.
While the Strauss family was deeply connected to the University of Pennsylvania, Louise A. Strauss emphasized her mother’s lasting ties to Coatesville: “My mother remained intensely loyal to Coatesville all of her life,” she told the Philadelphia Inquirer upon Ione Apfelbaum Strauss’ passing in 2020. “Her memories of a childhood spent in what she described as an idyllic small town were the stuff of our favorite bedtime stories.”
This generous gift continues the Strauss family’s legacy of philanthropy and commitment to education, and its impact will be felt for generations to come.
“Higher education represents opportunity, and we are tremendously moved by this generous bequest,” said Dr. Marta Yera Cronin, President of Delaware County Community College. “It will have a transformational effect on our students from Coatesville.”
The legacy gift will be managed by the DCCC Educational Foundation, a non-profit organization that provides financial resources for the College’s students, faculty, programs and facilities. The DCCC Educational Foundation supports the College through various programs, including the Essential Student Resource Center, the campus Veteran’s Center, research grants for faculty, emergency funding, and student scholarship funding every year. On October 5, the DCCC Educational Foundation held its annual Scholarship Luncheon to come together as a community to celebrate students, dedicated donors, supportive board members and committed staff.
For more information on giving to DCCC, contact Institutional Advancement at advance@dccc.edu or 610-359-5131, or donate directly here.
