DOVER — Nursing and helping bring comfort to others is seemingly in Tina Randolph’s bloodline.
All she needs to do is to look back to her great-grandmother, the Rev. Dr. Margaret L. Wortham, who was one of only three Black nurses in the first graduating class at the Crozer School of Nursing in Chester, Pennsylvania.
At 47 years old, Mrs. Randolph, of Dover, is determined to keep that tradition going as she was recently named one of 17 recipients of a Griswold National Caregiver Scholarship.
Mrs. Randolph, who is a home-care provider with Griswold Home Care in Wilmington, said the scholarship will allow her to attend school at Delaware Technical Community College, Terry Campus in Dover, this fall and obtain her degree as a certified nursing assistant.
Even she considered herself a long shot to be awarded one of the scholarships just based on her age and the fact that there were more than 200 applicants.
“I went through an interview, and they told me there were three top candidates for the scholarship and I was one of the top three,” said Mrs. Randolph. “They did an interview with me and through the interview, they asked me why I thought I deserved it, and what was the reason (for applying), and at the end of the interview they said, ‘Tina, you’re not only one of the top candidates for the scholarship — you’re actually the winner.’
“Then I had a fit. I cried. I screamed. I just couldn’t believe it because it all started with, ‘Well, I’m going to try this year and see what happens,’ not thinking in my head that I’m actually going to win.”
Just like that, Mrs. Randolph’s plans changed for this fall.
She and her husband, Adonis Randolph, had already made the decision to move from Wilmington to Dover with their youngest daughter Anaiyah prior to the scholarship.
“I said to my husband, ‘I’m going back to school,’ and he said, ‘How?’ I said, ‘I don’t know,’” she recalled. “Then he said ‘You can go back, I just don’t know how you’re going to do it,’ and I said ‘I don’t know how I’m going to do it, either.’
“But I have faith that I’m going to go back to school, but I just don’t know how. I just believed it, and it’s going to happen.”
Sarah C. Latini, director of the Jean Griswold Foundation, said Mrs. Randolph really stood out during her scholarship interview.
“Tina has an amazing family history that just sort of captured all of our imaginations,” she said. “She has a strong Philadelphia connection, which, for us being just outside of Philadelphia where our founder raised her family, it just immediately caught our attention to it.
“It was just such an amazing aspiration of Tina’s to continue in the footsteps of her great-grandmother and to continue serving the community, which was really a loud call to us.”
Ms. Wortham, who died in 2008, was also a pastor and the first Black woman to have a church in Chester.
Her church was on 509 W. Third St. and a portion of the street now has her name on it, known as “Margaret Wortham Way.”
A long road of reaching a dream
“When COVID hit, that changed everything,” said Mrs. Randolph. “(Anaiyah) was in fourth grade when COVID hit and I had to stay home with her during the daytime and that’s when I started with Griswold working at night.
“Me and my husband were seeing each other at the door every day. He was coming in from the daytime job and I’m going out for the nighttime. That’s what changed everything — that I was able to get active more with Griswold and caring for people.”
Now, with Anaiyah preparing to start high school this fall, Mrs. Randolph is looking forward to hitting the books along with her as she begins college.
She admits she still has to pinch herself sometimes to realize that her dreams are coming true.
“It means a lot to me,” said Mrs. Randolph. “I received an announcement that (Griswold) had scholarships available for people to apply for and I would see it every year and I never applied and didn’t do anything.
“And this was the year I said, ‘Well, I’m going to apply. It doesn’t hurt to apply.’ All I can do is just try and this year I tried because I want to go back to school.”
It turned out that just trying paid off in a big way for the future nursing student.
Ms. Latini said the fact that Mrs. Randolph is nearly 50 years old and about to begin college is something that is truly admirable and unique.
“It’s something that we’re pretty proud of,” she said. “We have a number of scholars that we have been able to award, who are coming into this at a more advanced time of their career, and the real difference is in the concepts of scholarships.
“People certainly think of high school and college people as getting those awards. But we’re pretty proud that we have been able to support caregivers who have had a long career of caregiving before taking their next step, or those who maybe have been in a family caregiving role and suddenly realize that this is a professional desire of theirs, as well.”
Staff writer Mike Finney can be reached at 302-741-8230 or mfinney@iniusa.org.
Follow @MikeFinneyDSN on X.
Most Popular
Comments / 0