CSEA member Janelle Little and her daughter Abigail, who was recently awaded a 2020 AFSCME Family Scholarship.
FRANKLINVILLE — As a child, Franklinville High School senior Abigail Little vividly remembers some of the obstacles her family had to overcome to just make ends meet, well before her single mother started working as a keyboard specialist for the Cattaraugus County Department of Social Services 10 years ago.
And today, CSEA Cattaraugus County Unit member Janelle Little, who is Abigail’s mom, and the entire Little family are now celebrating Abigail being recently awarded a 2020 AFSCME Family Scholarship. Abigail Little is one of 10 recipients nationally out of thousands of applicants.
The AFSCME Family Scholarship is just one way to ease the burden of college tuition for working families.
Each year, the AFSCME Family Scholarship Program provides 10 $2,000 scholarships to graduating high school seniors that will be renewed for $2,000 each year for a maximum of four years, provided the student remains enrolled in a full-time course of study. The scholarship is open to eligible dependents of AFSCME members and may be used for any field of study.
“Everything changed after my mom got her CSEA union job,” Abigail Little said. “We were becoming more financially stable and things just got better.”
A. Little
Abigail Little also confessed her mom’s union always intrigued her from an early age.
“Looking back, I saw how the union protected her career and the people she worked with,” Abigail Little said.
“CSEA was fighting to make the workplace fairer, and to make sure all the employees had proper time off to be with their families. I’ll always remember my mom telling me these stories at the kitchen table of what happened at work. I knew early on how important the union was to her and to our family.”
Janelle Little, who now works as an examiner specializing in temporary assistance claims and providing services to the homeless, said she is incredibly proud of her daughter.
“Abigail is extremely hardworking and intelligent,” Janelle Little said. “She cares deeply about the well-being of others, and that is something I think she will academically pursue and continue to do throughout her professional career.”
Abigail has committed to attend Point Park University in Pittsburgh, Penn. She plans to major in Psychology and study to be a clinical psychologist.
Sheri Ambuske, a CSEA Western Region vice president and Cattaraugus County Local officer, said this couldn’t have happened to a more deserving family.
“Janelle has worked very hard over the years, and I am thrilled Abigail was selected to receive such a generous scholarship,” Ambuske said. “It will no doubt go a long way to help the family’s college expenses in the years to come.”
Little wrote in her essay, “I don’t know where I will be working after I finish college, but I hope it’s for an employer that has a CSEA or AFSCME workforce.”
— Ove Overmyer
