Members of the Lake Anna Business Partnership (LABP) donated over $9,000 during it’s first year of fundraising for the LABP Scholarship Fund. This unexpected amount changed the plans for the fund.
“We initially planned on awarding a $2,500 scholarship to one college or technical institute bound student from Louisa, Orange or Spotsylvania County. Within a month we had enough donations to expand and award a $2,500 scholarship to a student from each county. The generousity of our members is extraordinary,” noted LABP Scholarship Fund Chair and past LABP President, C.C. McCotter.
The donations began with the annual Lake Anna Restaurant Week held February 5-12 that included the following participating establishments: Callie Opie’s Orchard, El Gran Patron, Lake Anna Taphouse, Mad Batter Bakery, Tasty Crab, Tim’s at Lake Anna and Vito’s On The Lake.
The goal of the week was to encourage locals and visitors to patronize area restaurants during a typically slow time of the year and generate funds for the new LABP Scholarship.
“We want to help our member restaurants get through the winter and I thank each of them for participating this year. We had diverse field of restaurants and that was good for our scholarship find,” LABP president Jody Korman told Life & Times.
Participating restaurants declared certain menu items part of the Lake Anna Restaurant Week menu and donated $1 from the sale of each of these meals to the LABP Scholarship Fund. LABP, in turn matched up to $250 of the donations.
In addition to the funds raised by Lake Anna Restaurant Week, one LABP Scholarship was fully funded by Tim Sansone and Rappahannock Electric Cooperative funded another. The following businesses donated $1,000: Steve Harler of Mid Atlantic Watersports and Dock Builders, Lionel Carter/Lake Dream Realty and American Docks and Dr. Dan Slovis of Lake Anna Veterinary Hospital. Mike Kavros of Callie Opie’s Orchard donated $400. Lake Anna Life Media Group, realtor Libby Sandbridge, Jody Korman of Commonwealth Referrals, Home Point Lake Anna, Lake Dream Realty and Ethan Seltzer of Ground Force each gave $250. Bob Kulakowski of Pro Radon Testing donated $100.
The scholarship recipients were: Stephanie Jennings (LCHS), Noah Stretton (Cortland HS) and Abbey Murray (OCHS).
If you’d like to donate to the 2024 LABP Scholarship Fund, make your check out to Lake Anna Business Partnership, with LABP Scholarship Fund in the description line and mail to LABP at PO Box 536 Mineral, VA, 23024. For more information about joining LABP, go to www.visitlakeanna.org.
