The Lutz Volunteer Fire Department has honored the GFWC Lutz-Land O’Lakes Woman’s Club Inc. by selecting it to serve as administrator and guardian of its newly established “Lutz Volunteer Memorial Fireman’s Scholarship Fund”.

Since Hillsborough County mandated that six remaining area volunteer fire houses be decommissioned and replaced by professional Firefighters (effective Jan. 1, 2013), our long serving Lutz fire house had no alternative but to disband and liquidate all its assets. After long and careful consideration, the Lutz Volunteer F.D. Board of Directors, under the direction of board President Jay Muffly and Director Gordon T. Brown, felt that after more than 60 years of distinguished service to the Lutz community, and in the early years much of North Tampa, the best legacy they could leave to the Lutz Community would be an endowed scholarship fund. Hopefully this endowment will be funded for at least the next 25 years or longer, depending on the investment market.

A minimum of two annual scholarships of at least $2,500 each will be awarded to Lutz residents. The scholarship criteria simply requires that 2 recipients be selected annually by the long established Woman’s Club Scholarship Committee, chaired by Barbara Nicholson, that they be residents of Lutz and added (or will enroll in) a fully accredited University or College.

The scholarships are restricted to Lutz residents due to the fact that the funds in the endowment fund are monies which were donated annually by Lutz residents and Lutz businesses to help support their own local volunteer fire department.

The endowment fund will be in the approximate amount of $266,000 as of this time, but individuals and/or businesses may continue to donate to this scholarship fund and allow it to continue not only for the next two and a half decades, but ad infinitum, as a testament to the brave men and women who volunteered hundreds and thousands of hours to fire response and EMT service to our Lutz community from its inception in 1952 through its recent closing.

GFWC Lutz-Land O’Lakes Woman’s Club which has through the years closely collaborated with and supported the Lutz volunteer fire department, considers it a great honor and privilege to carry out the wishes of the former F.D. and to act as guardians and administrators of this fund. What better means could the fire department possibly choose to have the greatest, most long-lasting and positive effect on the Lutz community than to fund a decades-long scholarship endowment for the residents of Lutz.

2013 Scholarship Recipients

The first two recipients chosen to receive the two annual scholarships for 2013 are Mary Canton and Dylan Waddle, who attend University of Central Florida and Pasco-Hernando Community College, respectively.