Ms. Jasmine Young, our founder, started the Maggie & Gillis Dickinson Scholarship in May 2019 to honor her late grandmother, Mrs. Maggie Dickinson-Wright and Ms. Young’s late great uncle and her grandmother’s brother, Mr. Gillis Dickinson. At an early age, Ms. Young exemplified exceptional skills and obtained noteworthy accolades in mathematics. As she excelled in mathematics and matriculated through grade school, she was often praised by her grandmother who insisted that Ms. Young inherited her knack for mathematics from her Uncle Gillis. Ms. Young never met the Vietnam War veteran from the small town of Grove Hill, Alabama, but her grandmother’s praise and encouragement ensured that Gillis’s “mathematical genius” lived on through Ms. Young.
In high school, Ms. Young decided that she would use her passion for numbers to become an accountant and start a global accounting firm. Ms. Young dreamed that she would transform the “Big Four” accounting firm network into the “Big Five” through the success of her global accounting firm, and she would use the knowledge and expertise gained throughout her career to teach and instill in her community financial literacy and the importance of generational wealth.
Through the Maggie & Gillis Dickinson scholarship, Ms. Young believes that she can empower small-town Alabama residents who, like her, have a desire for personal success, but most importantly for the success of her community as a whole. This scholarship is offered to high school seniors with aspirations of majoring in a business-related concentration and to undergraduate/graduate students majoring in a business-related concentration. Scholarship recipients will receive between $250 and $1000 to further his/her education in a business-related major. Scholarship applicants must:
- Be an Alabama resident;
- Be a graduating high school senior with plans to major in a business-related concentration or an undergraduate/graduate student majoring in any business-related concentration;
- Have a GPA of at least 3.0 overall (on a 4.0 scale); and
- Have a GPA in a business-related major of at least 3.5 (on a 4.0 scale) – for undergraduate/graduate applicants only
Southern Tax’s clients have the option to donate up to 10% of their service fees to the scholarship. Ms. Young believes that through this scholarship, she can honor her grandmother and great uncle by giving other business-minded students the praise and push Ms. Young received to make a difference in our world and our community.
