JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — In this week’s Stories of Service we’d like to focus on a veteran who makes it his mission to help the First Coast become a better place to live for all of its residents. The generosity of this Marine veteran has rubbed off on his daughter too.
Every Saturday you can find Charlie Griffin in the heart of downtown Jacksonville helping those who need it the most. Griffin uses his retirement checks from the military to pay for meals for the homeless in Jacksonville, but he also hopes to help the next generation.
Griffin brought his daughter Carly Griffin into the fold at First Coast Community Development as the organization’s Director of Public Health. Carly Griffin is a recent graduate of Florida A&M and established a scholarship for graduating high school seniors in Jacksonville who will continue their education at historically black colleges and universities in Northeast Florida.
"Going to an HBCU changed my whole view, my whole experience,” said Carly Griffin, “being able to learn and network with people who look like me and people who are interested in my development is something that's important to me."
10 scholarships of $1,000 each will go towards seniors with plans to study STEM fields. Charlie Griffin also wants scholarship applicants to write an essay to describe how they plan to use their education to make their community a better place to live, like what his mission in life has become.
"Just having kids see what we're doing and say, you know what, I want to continute to whatever community that I'm living in," said Charlie Griffin, “just giving them a footprint or a foundation to say I want to be involved in the community."
Griffin, a Marine veteran who has dedicated his life to serving the people of Jacksonville, now works with his daughter to foster the next generation of young people to support the community.
"We just want to highlight those black people who have been the guiding light, who have been innovators, who have helped establish the ground so we may walk behind them," said Carly Griffin.
Applications for this scholarship are being accepted until May 5th and more information about the scholarship and First Coast Community Development can be found on their website: https://www.fccdinc.org/
If you have a Story of Service that you would like us to profile, please send an email to storiesofservice@firstcoastnews.com
