Paying it Forward: Alum Sets Up Endowed Scholarship for Accounting Students
JENNIFER SCHU
As a 17-year-old graduate of Penncrest High School’s Class of 1968, Tom Kaneda found himself at a crossroads. “I lacked the means, grades and test scores required to enter a four-year college,” he said. The third of eight children, he spent his high school years working at a gas station three to four nights a week and on Saturdays, “to have a car, some spending money and a few things my family could not afford for me. As a result, my academics suffered.”
One of his customers at the gas station happened to be a Penncrest guidance counselor. He suggested that Kaneda apply to the brand-new Community College of Delaware County (now Delaware County Community College). The College had just opened and was housed at the former Dante School in Concordville, Pa. “It was a short commute, and the tuition for a full-time student was $175.00 per semester, which suited my limited income,” Kaneda recalled. “I enrolled—and that decision changed my life.”
Today, after a successful 44-year career as an accountant and fiduciary, Kaneda is retired and has decided to give back to his alma mater—by setting up an endowment through the Delaware County Community College Educational Foundation to provide scholarships to DCCC accounting students.
“Under the tutelage of the excellent teachers and professors at DCCC, I blossomed from a below-average high school student into a college student on the Dean’s List,” Kaneda said. “The professors I had were great. They saw something in me I didn’t know I had—and as a result I started really applying myself to my studies.”
His memories of his time at DCCC’s early Concordville location include taking classes in temporary mobile units which were set up to accommodate the College’s growth before the expansive Marple Campus opened in 1974. “Campus today, with its beautiful new STEM building and Advanced Technology Center, is a far cry from my trailers,” he laughed.
After taking classes toward an associate degree in Accounting from DCCC, Kaneda spent six years serving in the United States Air Force Reserves—during which, while working as a bookkeeper by day, he continued his college education as an evening student at Widener University. “Widener accepted all of my credits from DCCC,” he noted.
He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Accounting, summa cum laude, after which he continued his accounting career. Today, he and his wife, Barbara, live in Media and are the parents of two children and five grandchildren.
Kaneda hopes his personal story will help inspire other students—and that the funds provided by the endowed scholarship will make their dreams a possibility.
“I am a firm believer in giving back when you receive something that is of great value to you but didn’t cost you much,” he said. “I owe much to Delaware County Community College for giving me the opportunity to receive a first-class education at a highly reasonable cost. I hope this scholarship will help provide a student in a situation like mine back in 1968 with the same opportunity I enjoyed.”