Your Connection to Charitable Traditions

Scholarship recipient Dominic Knight with Amber Williams

Photo by Brandon Snider

Your Connection to Charitable Traditions

For 37 years, Charles McCauley served as an educator and advocate of public education, paving the way for many minority students and teachers at Oklahoma City Public Schools. When McCauley passed away in 2015, his family knew the only way to truly honor his legacy was to establish a scholarship fund that would support aspiring teachers and educators on their journey into the classroom.

Within the same year, the Charles B. McCauley Scholarship Fund was established to support central Oklahoma high school graduates who intend to pursue a career in education. But his wife and fellow activist, Earlene McCauley, didn’t rest there. With the holiday season approaching, she reached out to friends and former colleagues, successfully soliciting more than 85 individual contributions from across the country. Thanks to their network’s generosity and Earlene’s strategic efforts, the Charles B. McCauley Scholarship is now an endowed fund and will provide an annual award to one future Oklahoma teacher in perpetuity.

Earlene and Charles’ daughter Amber Williams represents the second generation of support for Oklahoma teachers. She makes contributing to her father’s legacy a priority by setting up an automated monthly donation.

“With the fund, we want to encourage students to pursue a career in teaching and to not decide against it due to financial reasons,” Amber says. “It’s now more important than ever to help teachers get a good start in the field and to ensure they stay in teaching.”