July 2021

Village Keeper

Winchester’s Scully is 2021 Good Samaritan Award Winner

Tina Marie Scully lifted the words right out of the document she had no knowledge existed. “It takes a village,” she says to the roomful of eyes cast on her, referencing what it takes to pull off the work of her organization, Families Reaching Out Group in Winchester, Va.

From board members to community supporters to relationships with social workers and schools, her message is no individual could possibly go at it alone to provide the foster care services the organization known as FROG offers.

Except, Scully can. That’s why when Shenandoah Valley Electric Cooperative nominated her for the Virginia, Maryland & Delaware Association of Electric Cooperatives’ 2021 Good Samaritan Award, the narrative began, “The saying that ‘It takes a village to raise a child’ meets a formidable foe in Tina Marie Scully.”

Scully and her husband, Robert, have fostered several dozen children, which assuredly has made immeasurable impact on these young lives and their families. Her experience led to the formation of FROG, dedicated to making a positive difference in the lives of foster children and other youth who have been victims of abuse or neglect, or who are at-risk.

One of the most important ways it accomplishes this goal is through Froggy’s Closet, a downtown Winchester store where everything is free to foster families. On May 4 at Froggy’s, an unsuspecting Scully was presented the Good Samaritan Award by SVEC board members and staff, plus a VMDAEC representative, while surrounded by FROG volunteers and directors.

“I’ve been lied to all day,” she says of the ruse that brought a small crowd to the store. “This is my passion. I’ve always loved children.” Preston Preston Knight is public relations coordinator at Shenandoah Valley Electric Electric Cooperative.

PASSION LEADS OTHERS

Scully and Froggy’s Closet are SVEC members, though co-op membership is not a prerequisite to earning Good Samaritan status. Established in 1968, the award recognizes an individual, a couple or a family who have rendered extraordinary service in a private or public capacity on a local, state or national basis, without seeking, or having received, public recognition for his/her/their service.

“We are beyond honored to recognize Tina, who embodies the Seventh Cooperative Principle of ‘Concern for Community.’ Her dedication and selflessness follows in the tradition of our Good Samaritan Award,” says Brian Mosier, president and CEO of the cooperative association.

Scully co-founded FROG in 2009 as a support group for foster parents and then obtained nonprofit status in 2011, branching out to serve any child in need.

Froggy’s Closet is the predominant program provided by FROG, opening opening at its current location location in December December 2015. Most everything everything in the store, which has a frog motif in front, is donated, donated, including new or like-new clothing.

With Scully by her side at the award ceremony, FROG board member Anne Marie Utz says Scully’s passion spreads, which is how Utz became involved in the organization several several years ago.

“I haven’t haven’t left,” she says.

SVEC Vice Chair Bill Orndoff, directing his words to Scully, Scully, adds: “Passion really drives people in getting the job done. People will follow people who are passionate.”