Massport announced the recipient of the annual scholarship honoring the memory of Donna Rauseo, a lifelong resident of East Boston and long-time employee of the Port Authority.
Eastie’s resident Jessica McHugh was awarded the $5,000 scholarship during a ceremony at Massport. The Scholarship is awarded annually to a female student who resides in East Boston.
To be considered for the Donna Rauseo Memorial Scholarship, female students are required to have minimum 3.0 grade point average and submit an essay of 1,000 words describing their career interests or how their community service has affected their outlook on life.
“We are so excited to award Jessica with the Donna Rauseo Memorial Scholarship,” said Massport CEO Thomas P. Glynn. “She has shown a strong commitment to helping those in the East Boston community and has followed Donna’s example through her service. She has excelled as both a volunteer and a student, and that represents what we were looking for when we established the scholarship in memory of our friend and colleague Donna Rauseo. We wish her the best in the years to come.”
McHugh is a graduate of Boston Latin School and will soon be attending UMass Amherst. She volunteers her time at the Salesian Boys and Girls Club in Eastie where she coaches a youth soccer team and assists with the after school program and summer camp.
In her essay, McHugh says, “volunteering and working at the Salesian Boys & Girls Club has had such a lasting effect on my life-one I will never forget. It helps me feel that I am making a difference and giving back to my community.”
Donna Rauseo, a longtime East Boston resident known for her personality and sparkling sense of humor, died in 2009.
Born Donna Morash, she was part of an Eastie family known for their political, social and environmental activism. At a very young age Rauseo’s social conscience was fully formed by her family, most especially by her mother, longtime community activist Evelyn Morash.
Rauseo was a graduate of East Boston High School and began her working career helping the neighborhood’s poorer residents through the East Boston APAC social service programs.
After working at APAC for more than two decades, Rauseo went on to work for Massport as Tom Kinton’s executive assistant, when Kinton served as Aviation Director at Logan Airport and later CEO and Executive Director for Massport.