Agent’s Scholarship Program Marks Fifth Year
Real estate professional Lori Fowler, an affiliated sales associate and Global Luxury specialist in Coldwell Banker’s Naples Fifth Avenue office, looks forward to every spring. Not because that’s when homebuying season ramps up, but because that’s when her scholarship program announces scholarship winners from local high schools in Naples, Fla. Recipients of The Naples Luxury Team Scholarship have gone on to such institutions as University of Miami, Florida State University, Virginia Tech, University of Florida, Florida Southwestern and Florida Polytechnic.
Lori Fowler
The program is now in its fifth year, long enough to see the payoff in having its first recipient graduate. Recipients receive $500 annually, which can be renewed for four years for a total of $2,000. The experience has been so rewarding that Fowler added a second high school and is planning to add a third.
“Real estate is my second career,” says Fowler. “My first career was in philanthropy, which instilled in me an appreciation for charitable giving and community service. From those humble roots, I paid for my own education, largely through student loans.”
Giving back to the community has been a mission of Fowler’s, who notes that Coldwell Banker earmarks funds from every transaction to its CB CARES foundation. Fowler underwrites the scholarship program from her own funds.
She asks applicants to submit an essay, and a committee comprised of people from the Naples community helps evaluate them. Fowler looks for someone industrious, involved in civic activities, who demonstrates a balance between academics and community.
“It’s designed to help a young person with their first move in life,” she explains. “They can renew the scholarship just by staying in touch.”
She admits that the students are not the only beneficiaries of the program.
“It reinforces my gratitude for education.”
