Longstanding Foundation Gives Almost Half a Million Dollars to College Students From Lyme, Old Lyme

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Community
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June 21, 2025
The MacCurdy Salisbury Educational Foundation recently awarded grants to 26 students. Standing, left to right: Manu Geronimo, Caleb Todzia, Mason Freer, Simon Karpinski, Ryan Shapiro, Micah Bass, Chloe Datum, Thomas Kabel, Tabitha Colwell, Erin Durant, Lily Esposito, Samantha Fiske and Paige Phaneuf. Seated, left to right: Abigail Greene, Abby Griffith, Audrey Spiegel, Nola Slubowski and Ada LaConti. Award recipients not pictured:
Gloria Conley, Caeli Edmed, Grace Ferman, Christopher Gibbons, Lana Lopes, Elias Sahadi, Kelly Sheehan and Charlotte Tinniswood.

LYME/OLD LYME—On June 17, the MacCurdy Salisbury Educational Foundation honored 26 graduating seniors during a reception at the Lyme Art Association.

Foundation President Fred Behringer said there are 94 students from Lyme and Old Lyme currently receiving grants through the program. The awards continue for all four years of college, trade school, or other post-high school training, as long as GPA and Lyme-Old Lyme residency requirements are met.

Total awards amount to $448,500 for the 2025-26 academic year, according to Behringer.

Behringer said grants for this year’s graduating seniors come in at $118,100.

The grants are based on need.

Evelyn MacCurdy Salisbury established the foundation in 1893.

W.E.S. Griswold Award recipient Simon Karpinski, right, and Willis Umberger Award recipient Ryan Shapiro were honored June 17.

Three students also earned $500 special achievement awards.

Simon Karpinski, who will be attending Harvard University, received the W.E.S. Griswold Award. Incoming Columbia University student Ryan Shapiro received the Willis Umberger Award. Caeli Edmed was awarded the Rowland Ballek Leadership Scholarship for a student who has demonstrated leadership in the school and community by organizing, mobilizing or inspiring others. Edmed will attend Yale.

The special awards honor Bill Griswold, president of the foundation from 1965 to 1992; Willis Umberger, secretary/treasurer from 1966 to 1986; and Rowland Ballek, president for 20 years until he retired in 2022.

Author
Elizabeth Regan

Elizabeth started her journalism career in 2013 with the launch of The Salem Connect, a community news site inspired by digital trailblazers like Olwen Logan. Elizabeth’s earliest reporting included two major fires — one at a package store and another at a log cabin where she captured, on video, a state trooper fatally shooting the unarmed homeowner and suspected arsonist. The experiences gave her a crash course in public record searches, courthouse procedures and the Freedom of Information Act. She went on to report for The Bulletin, CT News Junkie, The Rivereast, and The Day, where she covered the Lymes and helped launch the Housing Solutions Lab on affordable housing. Her work has earned numerous awards from the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists and the New England Newspaper & Press Association. Now, after more than a decade in digital, weekly, and daily journalism, she’s grateful to return to the place where it all started: an online news site dedicated to one small corner of Connecticut.

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