Given Monica's dedication to a variety of charitable and volunteer causes, the family believes she would have preferred a lasting contribution to others in lieu of flowers.

We have established an endowed scholarship in her memory for the University of Florida Wildlife Ecology Department. Contributions may be made to the University of Florida Foundation, Inc. with memo that they be used for the Monica Stokely Memorial Scholarship (Fund #F014233) and mailed to :

        The Florida Fund
        P.O. Box 14425
        Gainesville, FL 32604-2425.

You may also donate online by noting in the comment field that this is for the "Monica Stokely Memorial Scholarship Fund #F014233".

Endowment Basics

4% of the endowment will be given out as scholarships each year, 1% is used for administrative expenses, and the remaining investment income is used to grow the endowment over time so that the scholarship in future years will offer larger awards.

Impact

As of 2023, over 50 students have received scholarships from this memorial endowment to pursue studies at the University of Florida. The endowment continues to grow in size and at the current rate approximately 9 student scholarships will be funded each year in perpetuity.

State Matching Funds

At the time this scholarship was funded, the Florida Legislature had a "Major Gifts Matching Program" that specified that $50,000 in matching funds would be made for the donation to this scholarship.

On February 24, 2011, notes from the Florida Senate budget subcommittee meeting show that the UF Monica Christina Stokely Memorial Scholarship Fund was approved for $50,000 matching funds on October 27, 2009

The 2022 Florida Statues mention that:

"Effective July 1, 2011, state matching funds are temporarily suspended for donations received for this program on or after June 30, 2011. Existing eligible donations remain eligible for future matching funds."

The donation was made before the legislature suspended this program, but unfortunately they have not released any funding for the backlog of matches. There were several class-action lawsuits and news articles (1, 2, 3) in 2017-2018 about the state not making the promised matches. At this point over 10 years have passed, and it is unlikely that the state of Florida will follow through with the matching funds. Fortunately this fund has received generous corporate matches from Google, John Wiley Publishers, and Apple.