WILMINGTON – Ken Lowe, a founding donor to the Girls Leadership Academy of Wilmington, GLOW Academy, recently announced he would be donating $1 million to the school to name a wing after his 92-year-old mother, Barbara Love Lowe.
Ken Lowe, an Easy Surry High School graduate, is a former colleague and longtime friend of GLOW Academy Founder Judy Girard. He said his mother’s “lifetime of caregiving through nursing in her rural community and then on to a second chapter of management in the banking industry,” is what prompted him to make the donation, in her name,to North Carolina’s only single gender charter school.
School officials said the $1 million will support GLOW’s mission and names a wing of the school Lowe Hall in her honor. The donation was made as the school hosted its sixth annual Celebrity Chef Event, featuring Chef Robert Irvine, host of the Food Network’s Restaurant Impossible series, Chef Ashley Christensen, a two-time James Beard award winner from Raleigh, and included video and Zoom visits by Chefs Emeril Lagasse and Tyler Florence, respectively. More than 500 guests, including Lowe’s mother and family, attended the event which was hosted on GLOW Academy’s campus.
“I have admired the mission of GLOW Academy since my friend Judy Girard first committed to its founding in 2015. I have seen how these girls are thriving and are so enthusiastically supported by the Wilmington community,” Lowe said. “It is truly my privilege to honor my mother’s personal determination and commitment to education by naming a wing of GLOW Academy Lowe Hall.”
Lowe also made a contribution to name a GLOW Academy classroom in memory of Dr. Steve Martin, a mentor to him and Girard during their years together at Scripps Network.
“Ken Lowe has always been a supporter of women and recognizes their value to any endeavor chosen. His mother obviously instilled in him those values which will now get passed on to every GLOW student thanks to Ken’s generous donation,” Girard said.
Source: https://www.mtairynews.com