Surprise scholarship is a life-changing start
Since last September, she’s been working on the city’s Planning and Community Development team as assistant city planner, helping landowners, developers and other constituents in this city of 33,000 on wetlands issues, conservation easements and more.
That makes Edgecomb an integral part of the multi-step municipal processes that may determine whether a resident can build an addition onto their home, a developer can break ground on new construction or a homeowner can donate their land for preservation. She’s even key to deciding what downtown Dover — as idyllic an American Main Street as any — will look like.
Edgecomb may be working back in her hometown, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been a significant journey from when she first enrolled at UNH in 2019.
Back then, she was a freshman living at home (living on campus was too expensive), with a loose idea of what kind of career she wanted to pursue (something environmentally conscious) and working as many hours as possible at a part-time job that sometimes was really 40 hours a week (all about the guac, chips and burrito bowls at Chipotle in Newington).
But then she discovered the community and environmental planning major and, thanks to Professor Mary Friedman, learned about a new scholarship at UNH that year. It was a “full ride” scholarship, meaning it would pay for a rising sophomore’s remaining three years of college completely — tuition, room and board, fees.
The generous scholarship was funded with a gift from the Granite State Development Corporation (GSDC), a nonprofit community lending organization that specializes in the SBA 504 Loan Program, helping small businesses throughout New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts.
“The coolest experience of my life” is how she recalls, these five years later, the surprise moment she learned she had received the scholarship.
“I was having the same thoughts that every kid does going through college: ‘Oh my God, how am I going to afford to pay for this? I’m going to have so much debt,’” she recalls. “I love to learn, I love going to classes and being involved, but you’re wondering, ‘Is this something that’s going to be worth the cost at the end of it?’”
Thanks to GSDC, that question was answered and the financial burden lifted for Edgecomb, and for the five recipients who have come after her.
The GSDC scholarship is awarded every year to a student in either the Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics, the College of Life Sciences and Agriculture or the College of Liberal Arts. Recipients are chosen based on both merit and financial need, and only certain majors are eligible — those that have an academic area of study that aligns with the work of GSDC.
And it’s more than just financial support. Many of the past recipients have interned with GSDC, building professional relationships as undergrads that last into their post-grad careers.
Edgecomb did several internships at GSDC and considers many there close friends and personal and professional mentors. It was through GSDC connections that she was able to land her first professional gig, as associate city planner for Portsmouth, just months after she graduated from UNH.
GSDC had long been generous to UNH and other schools, regularly awarding smaller scholarships of roughly $2,500 to students. But something clicked when one of those previous recipients shared how much that money had helped him. GSDC leadership and staff were moved to act —if that relatively small scholarship had a major impact on that student’s life, what could an even larger scholarship do?
Those emotions drove the organization to work with the UNH Foundation to create the scholarship, one of just a handful of “full-ride” scholarships awarded each year, just before the pandemic hit and need among New Hampshire students grew even greater.
As the inaugural recipient, Edgecomb offers some words of advice for future GSDC scholars: Use this financial support as a launching pad to do even more.
“Once I got the scholarship, I thought it was amazing. And I guess I’m a never-settle person, so I started to think of it not just as an amazing gift, but an amazing opportunity to get to the next level,” she says.
“I was so grateful and then I thought, ‘OK this is it, this is my start.’”
Meet the other Granite State Development Corporation Scholars
Grace Simmons has just returned from a semester in Florence, Italy, and has just a few days to unpack and repack — this time for a summer internship in Washington, D.C.
Simmons, a dual major in political science and justice studies, is passionate about learning — she's known since about 8th grade she wanted to go into a legal career.
“My perception of students lucky enough to receive this award is that they are very academically successful. For me, there’s always this thought, ‘Am I good enough, is my work actually proving itself?’” she says. “Getting this scholarship was one of those moments where it was like ‘Yes, I am smart enough. Someone saw how hard I am trying and how much I care about what I am learning, and how passionate I am about what I’m studying.”
When he wasn’t in school, Ryan O’Malley of Dover was working as much as possible at part-time jobs to save money for school — as a cashier, and as a parking attendant. But the GSDC scholarship changed things.
“This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me in my life. I was paying out of pocket for my first year of college. This has allowed me to live on campus, and to graduate without any debt,” O’Malley shares.
He graduated this spring with a degree in analytical economics, and a minor in philosophy.
Olivia Dill just finished her first year at University of Miami School of Law, where she’s a public interest scholar; she spent time this summer working in legal services to help those facing eviction.
At UNH she was a dual major in international affairs and political science, and says she felt free to explore “every single thing that interested me,” especially after receiving the GSDC scholarship; whether it was joining Model UN, playing club volleyball, doing research in the Political Science Department and even working at Aroma Joe’s.
She says one of the best parts of receiving the GSDC scholarship was the support from the company — and not just the financial kind. At an annual gathering of GSDC staff and GSDC scholars, she recalls, “it wasn’t just one or two employees there; it felt like the whole company was there. They just wanted to hear about us and what we wanted to do, and how they could help us. It felt very empowering.”
When we checked in with Will Cleaveland in late spring, the dual major in community and environmental planning and sustainability was finishing up his internship at GSDC, and getting ready for his next adventure: studying abroad in Greece. Inspired by his academic work, he was excited to see in person the ancient examples of early city planning in Athens.
Studying abroad wasn’t something Cleaveland thought he’d be able to go, but after receiving this scholarship in 2024, it became a possibility. The financial support has also opened his mind to the possibility of grad school.
In the meantime, this fall he’ll be president of the Planning Club, and he recently was lauded for his work as part of a student team working on an app for reporting accessibility hazards and viewing responses on campus.
For the family of Matteo Gal of Dover, hearing the news that Matteo would be receiving the scholarship starting this fall was a very welcome surprise.
“This scholarship is a blessing to our family,” says his mother, Rafaela, noting that she and husband, Adilson, have two daughters; the oldest, Giulia, will be starting college soon. Says Rafaela, “This is a great example to her" of what can happen when a student’s hard work meets a donor’s kindness.
Matteo is studying economics at UNH, with a career goal of working in a role that connects economics to environmentalism, finding business solutions that make good environmental sense and good economic sense, too.
But for now, he’s simply enjoying the good news and making plans for what it will make possible for the rest of his UNH career.
“This is like a dream; it’s a lot of weight off my shoulders. I’m so thankful,” says Gal.