Tri-C Community Champions: William and Jesse Cunion

Couple work to create Eleven Angels Scholarship Fund in memory of serial killer’s victims

Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C^®) recently honored William and Jesse Cunion with a Community Champion Award for their work in establishing the Eleven Angels Scholarship Fund.

The scholarship is in remembrance of the 11 women found dead in the Cleveland home of serial killer Anthony Sowell. Five of the victims had, at one time or another, been enrolled at Tri-C.

The Cunions began looking for ways to honor the women after reading a story by reporter Andrea Simakis in The Plain Dealer. The story — which noted the lack of action taken to remember the victims and their lives — haunted the couple.

So they worked with the victims’ families and the Cuyahoga Community College Foundation to create the scholarship, announced in December during Tri-C’s Women in Transition program graduation ceremony.

The Eleven Angels Scholarship will include 11 awards of up to $1,000 during the 2019-2020 academic year, in memory of each woman. Preference will be given to residents of Cleveland’s Mount Pleasant neighborhood, where many of the women lived.

To donate to the Eleven Angels Scholarship, visit www.tri-c.edu/donate or call the Foundation at 216-987-4868.

The Community Champion Award was presented to the Cunions during the recent 2019 Appreciation Breakfast, held at Corporate College^® East in Warrensville Heights. The program is sponsored by Tri-C’s Office of Government Relations and Community Outreach.

William Cunion is the associate dean of liberal arts at Tri-C’s Eastern Campus in Highland Hills. His wife, Jesse, is assistant dean of student success at the University of Mount Union in Alliance.

July 17, 2019

John Horton, 216-987-4281 john.horton@tri-c.edu