Building Bridges to a Brighter Future
The Marie Maxey Foundation has supported scholarships for youth from underserved communities since 2019. That year, we awarded our first $500 scholarship to a Dreamer college student in Chicago. In 2020, we awarded 18 scholarships through three memorial funds honoring Dulce Deinken, Elena Bathrick, and Chris Goughnour.
In 2021, we provided 12 scholarships and supported an English-language training program in Honduras. In 2022, we expanded beyond scholarships for the first time. We equipped clinics in San Luis, Santa Bárbara, Honduras, with defibrillators, blood pressure monitors, and CPR training equipment.
In 2024, we launched the Heart Program, a Red Cross CPR/AED training initiative for underserved communities in Fairfax County, Virginia. In 2025, we received our first institutional grant from the INOVA Community Health Fund to expand that work. That year we also received more than 600 scholarship applications.
In all, more than 80 donors have contributed over $92,000 to our mission. Their gifts have funded more than 60 scholarships for students from Virginia to Mississippi to West Virginia and trained more than 300 people in life-saving skills. Because our staff are all volunteers, about 95 percent of every dollar goes directly to the people we serve.
We will continue this work. We are also expanding into public advocacy on issues that can increase Hispanic family resources and help ensure children have the economic support they need to pursue higher education.
A key part of this approach is helping Northern Triangle families in the United States — those with roots in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras — build financial and cultural links to their countries of origin. We want those links to strengthen communities both here and there. Remittances are one of the most powerful forces connecting these families to home, and we want to work with these communities to find ways to multiply their impact.
The first step is to understand where Northern Triangle communities live and work in the United States. [Explore our map] of these communities, our first attempt to identify them. Our next step will be to map their links back to their home communities.
For immigrants who hope to return home someday, we want to offer practical support. That includes financial literacy, savings strategies for a home-building fund, and partnerships with private and public organizations. Together, these can build a bridge back home and a path to a stronger, brighter future for the United States and the Northern Triangle.
SCHOLARSHIPS
This year we awarded $10,000 in scholarships to students from underserved communities, and we are in the process of awarding an additional 4 - $1,000 scholarships nationwide to deserving students. We continue to provide this support for post secondary education so young people can have a chance to
follow their dreams. As we do this, we are focusing more on students that are entering career paths that offer better employment opportunities and are less impacted by the advance of AI agents.
A major focus of our efforts this year has been to help students train for healthcare careers. To expand our program, we have applied for a grant from the Mississippi Rural Healthcare Transformation Program to provide "dual enrollment" scholarships for high school juniors and seniors in Mississippi to start their healthcare academic career while still in high school. Our initiative aims to support 6 high school students participate in a dual enrollment program with Holmes Community College. This program would be in addition to our annual scholarship program.
If you can help, please consider donating to our scholarship fund -- we strive to support promising students who have shown academic promise despite difficult financial and family support issues.
The Marie Maxey Foundation is an IRS certified 501c3 charitable organization (EIN -83-1473076). Your donation is tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.
RED CROSS CPR AED TRAINING
On July 31, 2026, we concluded our Red Cross CPR AED training program for underserved communities in Fairfax County. Under a $21,500 grant provided by the INOVA Community Health Fund, we were able to conduct CPR AED training sessions in Lorton and Centreville and we achieved the following:
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Three local organizations are now Red Cross-certified Training Services Providers — South County Church and ICNA Relief in Lorton, and the Centreville Immigration Forum in Centreville. Each has signed its own Red Cross training contract.
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Eight community volunteers were certified as instructors, qualified to teach and certify residents in Pediatric & Adult First Aid/CPR/AED.
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116 residents earned two-year Red Cross CPR/AED certifications across 29 classes, with 108 scholarships covering the cost for participants who could not pay.
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464 additional residents received hands-on CPR orientation — each one performed a full compression-and-breath cycle and took home a face-shield keychain.
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Full professional training equipment (Prestan manikins with feedback, AED trainers, and a working AED for South County Church) is now permanently in the hands of these three organizations.
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We spent $23,213 against the $21,500 grant, covering the $1,713 overrun from our own funds.
The point of the design was sustainability, and it worked. All three partners now hold the credentials, equipment, certified instructors, and operational know-how to keep training their own neighbors — in the languages and settings their communities actually use — without us. That is durable emergency-response capacity in two underserved corners of the county.
You can find our Financial Stewardship Letter for 2019 - 2025 here:
Beginning with the 2026 tax year, taxpayers who do not itemize may deduct up to $1,000 in cash donations to 501(c)(3) organizations — up to $2,000 for married couples filing jointly.
Grenada Star - May 20, 2026 edition - Adam Prestridge. Photo by Chuck Hathcock
