Nardo Foundation

Today, the Nardo Foundation received the largest donation it has received since the family donations that started up our non-profit! Woo Hoo! My birthday FB fundraiser collected $748. This almost covers the inaugural $1,000 teaching innovation award we gave earlier this month. If you’re looking for a donation that’s deductible on Federal taxes before the year closes tomorrow, please consider us.

The Nardo Foundation is proud to announce the inaugural winner of our Teaching Innovation Award: Twania White at Cross Keys High School. Ms. White teaches multicultural literature, and we are happy that Cross Keys lured this talented, award-winning teacher away from Gwinnett County to teach in our neighborhood. Half of the $1,000 award is for Ms. White personally to thank her for the daily difference she makes in students’ lives; the other half will help fund her classroom innovations. She plans to take her classes to the Atlanta’s National Center for Civil and Human Rights this Spring. Brava and thank you, Ms. White; you are a teaching icon!

Though it's still very basic, the Nardo Foundation's website is live at last. Please visit

The Nardo Foundation This is the website of the Nardo Foundation, a non-profit, charitable corporation.

Today, I toured Sandhills Community College’s Radiography program with my childhood friend Robin Garner (the program director), Ashley Davis (her faculty peer and clinical coordinator), and Jennifer Dail (my contact at the SCC Foundation). These dedicated educators are doing amazing work, and I’m proud that the Nardo Foundation is supporting them with a student scholarship.

The Nardo Foundation is celebrating the graduation of our inaugural Kay Brown Nardo scholar, Jailene. Your hard work is paying off, dear student, and we are so proud of you! Do well on your boards and starting your first job. We value all that Professor Robin Garner and her faculty do to propel their students forward. You honor my Mom’s decades of teaching and her legacy at Sandhills Community College!

The Nardo Foundation is celebrating the graduation of our inaugural Kay Brown Nardo scholar, Jailene. Your hard work is paying off, dear student, and we are so proud of you! Do well on your boards and starting your first job.

It’s an exciting day for the Nardo Foundation: the IRS approved our application to be a tax-exempt public charity under their 501(c)(3) code section. All of my hopes and dreams for this fledgling foundation are coming true!

Here’s the new logo for the Nardo Foundation — fabulous! An Oglethorpe alumna designed it for me. It had to be purple, show off the name visually, and emphasize my Italian heritage. What do you think?

Today, I was excited to meet the first college student to earn an award from the Nardo Foundation: Jailene Najera-Vazquez. She is a student in program where my Mama Kay taught for decades before retiring. I’m so happy to honor my Mama with this annual gift: the Kay Brown Nardo Radiography Scholarship at Sandhills Community College. My Mom had lunch with Jailene, my Dad, her long-time partner in the program (Mike Emery), his wife, and me. The planning and hard work from the last six months has paid off in seeing this first generation college student have the funds to finish her last semester in school. Thanks to the program’s current faculty leader and my dear friend Robin Garner and Jennifer Dail at Sandhills for helping make the scholarship a reality and for picking an awesome young woman to be its first recipient!