St. John’s College Annapolis has announced a $35.1 million gift from the Hodson Trust in support of student scholarships.

The college’s final gift from the trust, which was dissolved in 2022, brings the college’s total endowment to $244.5 million and will provide an additional $1.8 million in annual scholarship support. Since 1965, the trust has awarded more than $100 million to St. John’s, previously supporting the Hodson Trust Scholarship, the Hodson Trust Internship Program, as well as numerous building and renovation projects on campus.

According to St. John’s, a possibly apocryphal story of the trust’s founding states that its founder, Col. Clarence Hodson, was driving through Maryland when his car broke down, and a group of college students stopped to assist him. Not knowing which college the students were from, he established the trust to assist students from St. John’s, Washington College, Hood College, and Johns Hopkins University. While Washington and Hood have both announced final gifts from the trust, Johns Hopkins has not yet made an announcement.

“The Hodson Trust has long made a difference for our Annapolis students and for our campus,” said St. John’s president Nora Demleitner. “Their generosity with this final gift will ensure we can provide needed scholarship support to students for generations to come.”

(Photo credit: Flickr/Brandon Bartoszek)