Local business owners donate earnings to create college scholarships

NORTH AUGUSTA, S.C. (WRDW/WAGT) - For some businesses, making money is probably the top priority.

For Vampire Penguin in North Augusta, making money means sending local kids to college.

For Jack and Judi Poole, it felt great presenting that first check.

“It was really a culmination of our dreams, if you will, that what we had set in place a year ago was coming true, so it’s really kind of a dream come true,” they said.

The Pooles retired after 35 years in the workforce. They took ownership of Vampire Penguin in North Augusta about a year ago.

They moved to the CSRA just to run this business.

“We’ve got our pension sort of taken care of, so we’re not worried about anything along those lines, so we just wanted to have something that continued to give back over and over again, and we felt this was the best way to do it,” said Jack.

The Pooles have pledged to donate 100 percent of their profits to create trade school scholarships.

“We wanted something that could generate scholarships on an ongoing basis, and small business we thought would be perfect or that,” he said.

They donated $25,000 to Aiken Tech in December, but the Pooles say this is just the start.

“As long as we own this business, and we’re profitable, we’re going to continue to pump the profits over to the scholarships. That’s what the store is for,” said the Pooles.

They say this money can help students with tuition and other things like books and transportation.

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