"We'll need teachers forever," said Nancy Winkler ('63 and '90 MSE), a Wisconsin State College (now UW Oshkosh) graduate who was a physical education and mental health teacher in both the Kiel and Oshkosh school districts in the 1960s.

Nancy Winkler was the first in her family to attend college. She received a legislative scholarship for high school valedictorians, Mishicot Alumni Scholarship and the Rowland Scholarship for women in physical education, which supported her pursuit of a college education. And, she earned her degree in just three years.

Eugene Winkler '59, also a teacher and first-generation college student, earned his degree in secondary education from Wisconsin State College in 1959 and also taught in Kiel and then at Oshkosh West High School. His education, he said, was funded by the GI Bill.

"That's one of the reasons I like the idea of giving back," said Eugene Winkler, who also taught at UW Oshkosh as an ad hoc economics professor from 1990 to 1996. "I got public, government money and it made it easier for me."

And, making it easier for other students is the goal of their scholarship fund, the Winklers say.

"If we want to get ahead as a world, people need an education and those of us who can give should," Nancy Winkler said. "I was always brought up knowing that if you were given something, you give back. Spend your money on things that will help the world."

While the Winklers are helping others attend school through scholarship funds, they are also watching one of their own, their grandson, excel as a freshman at UW Oshkosh this academic year.

"UW Oshkosh is a wonderful place for him to be, it's a wonderful campus," Nancy Winkler said.

Nancy Winkler added: "We didn't have a lot of children – just two – so the scholarship is a way to help these other people that are "our" children, whether know them or not."

Affinity funds several scholarships that help support nursing students at UW Oshkosh.

Affinity's Chief Nursing Officer Tom Veeser said many nursing students who come out of UW Oshkosh's program each year are eventually employed by Affinity, making the relationship mutually important to their organization.

Learn more about why Affinity chooses to partner with UW Oshkosh …

Blanchette, one of three children who are all UW Oshkosh alumnus, began college in an era when women weren't traditionally educated. Even her father didn't believe in education for women. "Back then, women just worked in an office," Blanchette said.

Even as a high school student, Blanchette knew working in an office wasn't for her. Her drive to learn helped her discover, at the end of high school, that she qualified for a grant because she had a heart condition, which categorized her as "physically handicapped." Due to her disability, a state-funded grant paid for her basic education-related fees, which were $54 per semester in 1956, she said.

The grant allowed Blanchette to attend college at UW Oshkosh, where she would eventually graduate from with a degree in English. That "free money," she said, changed her.

"I made up my mind at the time I started college to provide an opportunity for other people to get education," she said. "I was so happy to have an education that I was happy to give back."

Not too long after she made the promise to herself, Blanchette was inspired by an instructor who had passed. Blanchette cleaned out her bank account to create what would be the first of several scholarship funds.

"I didn't have much in the bank but when I heard he died, I cleaned out the account and put $500 into the Nevin James Debate Fund," Blanchette said.

The Nevin James Debate Fund was established to keep the spirit of debate alive in classrooms and communities. Though he spent most of his 44 years at UW Oshkosh teaching English, Blanchette fondly remembers that James most loved debate. The fund promotes and assists argumentation and debate as an art and craft to help debate students achieve their personal and professional goals.

A few years later, Blanchette was at it again. She cleaned her bank account out again to begin a fund that would recognize an impactful geology teacher. Blanchette remembers being one of the only females to take a geology class, even after being told she could not pursue it as a career because it was "man's work" at that time. Eventually, she said, she took every geology class offered at UW Oshkosh simply because she enjoyed the subject matter.

Throughout the years, Blanchette, who was employed by the University of Wisconsin-River Falls for 35 years, contributed to the creation of many other funds that support education students, sophomore students, high achievers, even classified staff development and more.

"I'm actually really selfish," Blanchette said. "I want to do these things now while I'm still alive because I want to meet these people I'm helping.

Blanchette said she gives for many dear-to-her-heart reasons.

"I love watching people grow at any age," she said. "People grow so much from the time they start college until when they graduate and it's neat to watch. It's been a ball meeting and watching these people. It thrills the socks off me."