Ginny Donohue: ‘Be That Person’
Founder of On Point on her journey that ultimately helped thousands to overcome obstacles to go to college
By Mary Beth Roach
Be that person.
It’s something that Ginny Donohue, founder and former executive director of On Point for College, encourages people to do — believing that those willing to share what they know and show others the ropes can make a difference.
“If you had that person, thank them. Please be that person for someone else,” she said.
This is one of Donohue’s core beliefs, which have been the foundation of her life. And the cornerstone of her work at On Point, an organization she founded in 1999 to help youth attain higher education and break down some of the obstacles that might hinder them.
According to On Point’s website, it helps young people through the application and admissions processes to graduation and beyond, offering support for those seeking college, graduate or professional degrees or other types of professional training.
Donohue retired from On Point for College in 2016.
Her core beliefs also formed the crux of the message that she conveyed to the audience gathered for the December commencement ceremonies at SUNY Oswego, where she received an honorary doctorate degree.
At 37, and a young mother of two — Shanley and Adam — she enrolled at SUNY Oswego as a non-traditional student. She earned her bachelor’s degree in accounting in 1988. She already had a degree in philosophy from LeMoyne College, that she earned in 1969 and a master’s in education from Syracuse University. The Hannibal resident is now 76 and as she joked, “I don’t make my age a secret. I’m proud of it.”
Being that person
Donohue has become that person for thousands of youth through her work at On Point.
In 1991, her daughter, Shanley, asked her to help a friend apply and prepare for college. This request would set Donohue on a path that changed the whole trajectory of her life.
A former teacher in the Syracuse City School District and in Newburgh and a one-time president of the “Dollars for Scholars” in Hannibal, Donohue has always been a strong advocate of education.
“I feel like a college education gives people a voice in business, in government, in education, everything,” she explained.
After assisting one teen get into college, she said she was later approached by a couple of other teens, who asked her if she could help them. It grew from there and she began helping kids who were chronically homeless get into college. She would even sometimes buy their bedding, help pack their clothes, drive them to college, visit them mid-semester and get them bus tickets home.
All this time, she was still working in the corporate world.
That would all change following a conversation with a young person she had helped. Donohue recalled that talk. This individual told Donohue, “’Because of you, I’m going to have my dream. You’re my friend and I want you to know what this feels like. What’s your dream? What’s your passion? If that’s not the life you’re living, what are you doing to change your life?’”
“It was like I’d been kicked by a horse,” she said.
So, in 1999, she left a high-ranking position in the corporate world and officially began On Point — her mission strengthened by her beliefs, the words from that one particular student about her passion and the support of her husband, John.
The organization will mark its 25th year this year.
When she told her husband that she was going to leave her job in order to help youth get into college, Donohue said his response was “‘If that’s what you have to do, that’s what you have to do.’”
She started visiting community centers with a rolling suitcase full of college guides and applications. Eventually, she would be offered free space at the Catholic Charities headquarters in Syracuse. They are currently located at 488 W. Onondaga St., with another office in Utica.
“My original dream was that I would find 1,000 kids who never thought they could ever go to college and help them to go. When I left it was 8,700,” she said.
The program, currently under the direction of Sam Rowser, who succeeded Donohue, is now in six area counties.
But On Point doesn’t just stop once the youth get into college. The program has volunteers that provide rides to and from school when needed; it helps pay applications fees when necessary and follows up with them to make sure they’ve other necessary resources and supplies. Once they have graduated, the program can even help them prepare for their entrance into the workforce with mentoring and interview coaching.
Of Rowser and herself, she said, “I think someone up there had bigger plans than we did.”
Her other core beliefs
In carrying out those bigger plans, Donohue would call upon her other two core beliefs. One was asking for help.
There were many people who asked her what her Plan B was, she said.
“There was never ever a Plan B for me, not for one minute,” she said. “I always knew if I met an obstacle that was big enough that it might stop me, that there was someone out there that knew how I could get beyond it. I just had to figure out who was that person and I had to ask for help. You ask until you ask the right person at the right time in the right way.”
And the third belief is that wonderful events will occur when you’re on the right path.
“All these unbelievable, serendipitous things will start happening to you that propel you into the future,” she said. “I used to come home and my husband would ask, ‘What’s the miracle of the day?’”
Donohue has been part of many miracles and has helped others realize theirs.
She told of a young man who had written her while he was in jail, asking her for help once he got out. She advised him to get his GED while he was incarcerated. Immediately upon his release and even before he went home, he stopped at Donohue’s office and told her that he had gotten his GED, but that it got lost in the mail. Donohue said they could order a copy for $15, but she soon realized that that fee was a stumbling block for this young man. When she told him that On Point would pay the $15, she said he burst into tears. She was not going to let $15 stand between him and his accomplishment.
Another was a miracle that began about 23 years ago and
continues today.
In the early 2000s, when Syracuse was becoming home to a large population of Sudanese, one of the Lost Boys of Sudan, Fidele Dhan, appeared at her office, referred by a volunteer with Catholic Charities. He told her he was supposed to start at the University at Buffalo in two days but lacked a place to stay and had very limited finances. She talked to one of her volunteers in the Syracuse area and in less than a day, they were able to find a priest in the Buffalo area who would allow the student to stay in his rectory for $200 a month.
Several years later, she received an email from a friend about an article in a Catholic magazine. The story told that when Dhan arrived at the rectory in Buffalo, the priest there had told him that his prayers had been answered. He explained that several years prior, he had been watching a television program about “The Lost Boys of Sudan.” That program had featured a segment about the thousands of Sudanese boys who had fled their home villages in South Sudan, which had been attacked, burned and as part of the Sudanese civil war.
During the story, the television camera focused on one young boy who just stared into the lens. The priest told Dhan that he had prayed for that little guy every day for eight years. Dhan asked if, by chance, the priest had taped the program, which he had. When he showed Dhan the tape, he told the priest that that little guy was him.
Since then, with funding and support from several organizations and some grassroots efforts from various youth groups from the Buffalo area that were inspired by Dhan’s story, he has been able to build a seven-room health clinic in his home village called the South Sudan Villages Clinic.
Donohue has helped Fidele secure monies and since opening in 2019, she said, the clinic has had 56,000 patient visits there.
That all these events played out the way they did, Donohue said that there was a higher power at work.
Life after On Point
Anyone who knows Donohue knew she’d stay active even after she retired from On Point.
She said she maintains contact with many of those who have gone through the On Point program.
“There isn’t a single day in my life that I don’t communicate with one of the kids — Facebook, texting — even now,” she said.
When one former On Point student and his wife were preparing to welcome a baby into the world, Donohue was at the hospital and the couple even gave their daughter a name that is a derivative of Ginny.
While she continues to help Dhan with the clinic, she said that a few years ago, she found another passion.
“I learned, at the age of 72, that I’m a landscape artist. I absolutely love painting,” she joked. Her son-in-law got her started at a paint-and-sip event and then she followed along with some tutorials from Bob Ross, who hosted The Joy of Painting television programs on PBS; and she learns online.
“I get such a sense of peace whenever I paint,” she said. And that peace appears to come through in her art, with tranquil yet majestic landscapes, rich in detail and texture.
And twice a year, she gets behind the wheel of the couple’s RV and she and John make two long trips — south in the winter and west in the fall. They’ve made several trips across the United States as well as Nova Scotia.
Donohue’s honorary doctorate from SUNY Oswego is the latest in a long list of acknowledgements.
According to On Point for College’s website, in 2015 she had been nominated by SUNY Oswego and was recognized by the Association of Advance Collegiate Schools of Business as an influential leader who “embodies how one person can help change the world.”
On Point and SUNY Oswego also collaborated to secure federal funding as partners in a 2015 $2.8 million First in the World Grant to improve college attainment in Central New York. In 2013, the organization’s leadership met with then-President Barack Obama in recognition on the work it had done in advance higher education in Central New York. In addition, Donohue has received awards such as Syracuse University’s Martin Luther King Unsung Hero Award, Purpose Prize Fellow, Daily Point of Light from George H. W. Bush, Traditional Woman “Classic Woman Award,” Post-Standard Achievement Award and Ben and Jerry’s “Citizen Cool” Award.
All the awards further underscore that she has been that person for thousands and has paid it forward countless times. Yet, she sees herself as the beneficiary.
“It’s brought me more joy, more love than any one person has a right to,” she said.