The Icik and Rose Plevinsky Memorial Scholarship

Criteria: (Amount Equal to One Full Annual Tuition Award) The Icik and Rose Plevinsky Memorial Scholarship is the first endowed scholarship for business students at Worcester State University. This scholarship is awarded to a female full-time Business Administration student with a minimum GPA of 3.0 with demonstrated financial need.

“How proud I am to be the daughter of parents who came to America from Europe as immigrants to pursue the American Dream!” Those words are from former Worcester State University Business Administration and Economics department secretary Esther Golub, who established a scholarship in her parents honor.

For more than twenty years, the late Mrs. Golub filled her position with competence, commitment, and unwavering dedication, attributes she learned from her beloved parents, Icik and Rose Plevinsky. The Plevinskys and their infant boy came to America from Poland in 1910, reluctantly leaving family and homeland behind as they searched for a better way of life. Arriving in Boston with little more than the clothes on their back, the young couple faced enormous challenges.

As a young boy in Poland, Icik served as an apprentice to learn the baking trade and became a first-class baker. Once in Boston he joined the Bakers Union and soon was offered a chance to purchase his own bakery in Haverhill, Massachusetts. For the next twenty years, raising a growing family, Icik and Rose Plevinsky worked tirelessly, seven days a week fifty-two weeks a year, to make their business, The Boston Model Bakery, a success. They attended evening school, learned to read and write English, and soon became American citizens.

Their courage and determination, as well as their love of learning, were an inspiration to their three children, Reuben, Anne, and Esther. As Esther explained, “My parents were my inspiration and example. The American Dream has been made a happy reality through my Memorial Scholarship in memory of my beloved parents.”