Donor Supports “Helping” Disciplines

A former professional oboist from the U.S. has created a financial award in honour of her late father to assist students in nursing, social work and rehabilitation therapy.

Nora Post, who has suffered from chronic, disabling pain for most of her adult life, says she wanted to do something for the people who have helped her cope with her condition for almost three decades. She decided to make a cash gift to create an endowment for the award and a bequest to supplement it in the future. “I’m helping the people who helped me,” she says.

The Henry Albertson Van Zo Post Student Award, worth $2,000, was given out for the first time last year, to first-year nursing student Amanda Keall.

Post earned two graduate degrees in music from New York University but never attended U of T. Like a growing number of American philanthropists, Post decided to donate to an institution where her money would make the greatest impact. “It was a practical decision, not an emotional one,” she says. “For the same calibre of education, I could send six or seven people to school at U of T for the amount I’d need to send one person to New York University.” (Tuition fees at NYU are $36,000.)

Post, who lives in upstate New York, did not choose Toronto out of the blue. She has visited the city several times and has some close friends at U of T. She says she “couldn’t be more thrilled” to support a named scholarship here, and encourages others to explore the opportunity.“I am not a wealthy person. If someone like me can do this, it means there are an awful lot of other people who could do it as well.”