The county's last Independent Order of Odd Fellows lodge will leave a legacy of caring at Butler County Community College.

College officials announced Monday that I.O.O.F. Connoquenessing Lodge 278, which was chartered in 1847, has endowed the BC3 Education Foundation with $15,000 for an annual scholarship in the school's nursing program.

Each year, a student in their second year at BC3's registered nurse program who has a minimum of 30 credits, a grade-point average of at least 3.0 and who demonstrates financial need will receive $500 toward their education, thanks to the lodge.

The lodge decided to provide the scholarship endowment because the vast majority of its 24 members are of retirement age or beyond.

“We're decreasing every year to the point that we wanted to have a legacy for us,” said Alvin Walters, lodge secretary. “At some point we may no longer exist, but (the scholarship) will exist forever.”

The financial gift marks the lodge's first to an institution of higher learning.

Lodge members decided to endow the nursing program for good reason.

“The nurses are on the front line to take care of the sick,” said Rex Hurd, lodge treasurer. “We felt the community college will be around forever. And the nursing program will be there, too.”

Deni Mealey, a 2017 Karns City High School graduate and nursing student in BC3's RN program, said she could not have attended BC3 to pursue her dreams were it not for the scholarships she has received.

Last year, Mealey earned the first Nancy A. Zirnsak Scholarship, which is also to be bestowed on a second-year RN student at BC3.

“This is a community member who took their hard-earned money and donated it so I could try and succeed,” said Mealey, who plans to graduate debt-free in May and begin a nursing career in long-term geriatric care.

“It's absolutely incredible. It's a blessing,” Mealey said, “and then you have that tie to the community that, my goodness, this person totally helped me and they didn't have to.”

BC3 also will debut 11 other scholarships, according to a news release from the school.

Nancy Jean Rose, a former BC3 faculty member and director of the college's graphic arts and photography programs, created five scholarships that will be awarded by the BC3 Education Foundation in 2020-21.

Other scholarships include those created by Thomas Ten Hoeve, who served as BC3's second president from 1970 to 1984, and Suzanne Ten Hoeve; Budget Blinds of Butler; the Wainwright family; the women's auxiliary of American Legion Post 117 in Butler; and Thomas Ward.

The first Sarah Kasunic Nursing Scholarship — created by family and friends of the 2016 graduate of the RN program who was one of two pedestrians killed by an automobile in March 2019 in Tennessee — will also be awarded in 2020-21.

Applications for all $200,000 in scholarships at BC3 begin Wednesday.

BC3's scholarships average approximately $500, said Ruth Purcell, executive director of the BC3 Education Foundation.

“That's pretty significant to our students,” she said.