Wendy Chioji scholarship at UCF is fully endowed
The Wendy Chioji Memorial Scholarship at UCF has been fully endowed with more than $25,000 in donations.
The initial plan is for two $500 scholarships to be awarded each year to support students studying at the Nicholson School of Communications and Media at the university.
The scholarship honors Chioji, a former anchor at WESH-Channel 2 who died Oct. 7 after a long battle with cancer. She was 57.
In 2001 on a WESH newscast, Chioji announced she had breast cancer. In 2008, she left the NBC affiliate after 20 years to move to Park City, Utah. But she would share later cancer battles through her “Live Fearlessly” blog and local TV specials.
She endorsed the view that knowledge is power in fighting cancer. She helped many others by sharing her story. That legacy, personal and journalistic, will live on through the scholarship.
As the endowment grows, the number of scholarships given each year would increase and so would the dollar amount, said Patrick Smith, director of advancement at the Nicholson School, on Tuesday.
“This is a scholarship that lives forever. It will continue to grow and grow,” Smith said. “It’s Giving Tuesday, so we’d love to see people making donations.”
You can make a donation at ucffoundation.org/wendy or by calling 407-823-5526.
The UCF Foundation page shares part of one of Chioji’s final interviews. In it she challenged people: “I get frustrated when I see others not taking full advantage of good health, of resources, of free time, and making their lives everything they can be. I would love to have that opportunity. I’d love to be able to count on 20 more years of traveling around the world, visiting many more countries and eating great food. I’m not going to have that. I know that. So my advice is to take calculated risks. Say yes. Go out and do things. Try to be great every day because it might be your last day.”