Donor Profile: Francine Kozkodin
Turning a tragedy into a tribute, Francine Kozkodin ('62, Education) keeps the spirit of the daughter she lost too soon alive through a scholarship at Sacramento State funded through a Charitable Gift Annuity.
Before Karen Warmdahl ('76, English) succumbed to a two-year battle with breast cancer, her family moved back home to Sacramento, buying a new home with an unfinished backyard. While Ms. Warmdahl was going through chemotherapy, the family raised money to landscape the yard "so she could recover in a pretty setting," Ms. Kozkodin says.
But Ms. Warmdahl died before the work could be done.
"We still had the money and the family didn't know what to do with it. Someone suggested we make a gift to Sac State," Ms. Kozkodin says.
The decision to honor her daughter's memory through the University made sense. Ms. Kozkodin had attended Sacramento State, graduating after her children were born. Ms. Warmdahl followed in her footsteps, earning a degree in English.
Both of Warmdahl's children had ties to Sacramento State as well. Her daughter Kelsey, who was nine when Ms. Warmdahl died, has taken classes at the University and son Zak participated in Academic Talent Search.
"It was a small amount and we thought we might buy a bench or something. But we decided to do something that would make more of an impact and talked to someone about a scholarship," Ms. Kozkodin says.
The Planned Giving office suggested the family set up the scholarship through a Charitable Gift Annuity. "We wanted it to be in perpetuity, so that's what we decided to do," Ms. Kozkodin said. The income from the Charitable Gift Annuity provides a yearly scholarship to a student in English.
Ms. Kozkodin stresses that the amount of the family's gift was not large. But she is pleased that through the Charitable Gift Annuity it will be able to continue to grow and assist students for years to come. "It is a small scholarship today but eventually it will be larger."
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