Scholarship Donor and Recipient
From the Summer 2008 issue of e-Momentum.
When Toni Boucher decided to endow a scholarship in the School of Business, she was hoping to help students with financial needs to get a good start. What she didn’t expect was to see her donation support someone with whom she had so much in common.
Recently, Boucher, once a young immigrant with few means, sat down to lunch with her beneficiary, Virginia Caldari, who also came to this country under difficult circumstances.
Boucher, a six-term Connecticut state representative from Wilton and assistant minority leader, emigrated from Italy as a young child with her family. Her parents had received little formal schooling and did not speak English.
“My family was very tight-knit, very close, but with few resources and very little education,” says Boucher. “My father really championed education as a way out and a path to freedom. He was determined that his children would be very well educated. That became the focus of our upbringing.”
Boucher says that this commitment to education led her to a successful career in the private sector, which gave her the financial ability to establish the Toni Boucher Scholarship Fund.
That scholarship made all the difference for Virginia Caldari. A finance major, Caldari came to this country four years ago from the former Soviet Union republic of Moldova. Caldari says that her parents, both professors, could barely earn more than $100 per month in their home country.
Caldari’s father came to the U.S. and, after several years, obtained a green card. It was only weeks before Caldari’s twenty-first birthday, and she was forced to abandon her university classes just before her exams so that she could come to the U.S. before her age would exempt her from her father’s visa.
Because of their limited English skills, Caldari’s parents were not able to re-establish their academic careers in the U.S. Caldari and her younger siblings, however, having had some English in school, adapted quickly and continued their studies—all three of them ending up at UConn.
Caldari remembers the day she learned that she was chosen to receive the Toni Boucher Scholarship. “The second I got the letter [about the award], I had this feeling of taking pride,” says Caldari. “The fact that you have a scholarship makes you a special person.”
Earlier this spring, School of Business Director of Development Diana Timlin arranged for Caldari and Boucher, who had never met, to join her for lunch. Both women describe the meeting as very emotional, filled with memories of their respective struggles as immigrants and admiration for each other’s drive and passion.
“What she has done, I’m so proud of her,” says Boucher. “I entrusted it to the University to make the best choice of recipient for the scholarship. She truly fit the bill!”
Caldari remembers one moment during that meeting that stood out. “At one point [Boucher] said, ‘I’m sorry about the money. I know it’s not very much.’ And I told her that it was not about the amount of money at all. It was the feeling that someone was supporting me, was holding my hand.”
Boucher was very touched. “She’s right. There are many barriers to getting an education. We know how expensive it is. But this is a way to show that someone thinks that you are special, that you have potential,” says Boucher. “You don’t get much in life unless you give.”
Virginia Caldari graduated from UConn in May, and is now living in Stamford and looking for a permanent position in finance.
To make a gift to the School of Business, please contact Diana Timlin at 860.486.2656.
