The Anthony “Tony” Gobar Juvenile Justice Scholarship Fund at the Community Foundation for Mississippi marks 20 years of supporting students pursuing careers in juvenile justice and related fields.

Anthony “Tony” Gobar never wanted the spotlight. He was content to do the work — listening, mentoring, advocating and helping build better systems for young people who too often slipped through the cracks. This year, the Anthony “Tony” Gobar Juvenile Justice Scholarship Fund at the Community Foundation for Mississippi marks 20 years of supporting students pursuing careers in juvenile justice and related fields.

For Tony’s family, the scholarship fund is not just a milestone. It is a way to carry forward the life and values of a man they remember as steady, selfless and deeply committed to helping others.

A Life of Service

Angela Gobar first met Tony in Lafayette, Louisiana, where she had moved for her first job. They worked in the same office building, though not for the same company. Over time, friendship turned into dating, and a year later, they were married. The couple lived in Louisiana for seven years, where their children, Anthony Jr. and Aja, were born, before relocating to Mississippi in the mid-1980s.

In Jackson, both Tony and Angela worked for the State of Mississippi. Angela worked in community and economic development. Tony worked in juvenile justice, eventually serving for 17 years as the state’s juvenile justice specialist.

Tony’s path into that work made sense for the person he was. A psychology major in college, he had also worked for a community action agency early in his career. Angela said those experiences exposed him to people from disadvantaged communities and to young people trying to navigate difficult circumstances.

“He was always really good with children and with older people,” Angela said. “So when he came to Mississippi and took over the position as the juvenile justice specialist, I think his passion just for working with youth and troubled youth grew even more.”

At home, she said, he was just as devoted.

“He was just a good guy,” Angela said. “Very selfless. He always wanted to help other people.”

She knows that description can sound simple, even cliché, but in Tony’s case, she said, it fits.

“He never wanted to be in the spotlight,” she said. “He liked doing his work, just kind of being low key.”

Tony died suddenly of a heart attack in 2004 at age 53, after more than 24 years of marriage. In the months that followed, Angela and her children began to understand just how far his influence reached.

After his death, the family learned more about his work not only in Mississippi but nationally. They discovered how respected he was by peers and colleagues in juvenile justice and how involved he had been in advisory boards and policy work. Angela, Anthony Jr. and Aja were even flown to Los Angeles, where Tony was honored by colleagues on the national level.

“It wasn’t until after he had passed away that we began to learn just how impactful he was in his work around juvenile justice,” Angela said.

A Scholarship Fund Built to Last

In the midst of that grief, the family knew they wanted to honor both Tony’s memory and his life’s work.

“Since he was so passionate about his work, we felt like an educational scholarship for young people who were interested in going into some type of justice field would be the best way to honor Tony,” Angela said.

That decision led to the creation of the Anthony “Tony” Gobar Juvenile Justice Scholarship Fund at the Community Foundation for Mississippi. The endowed scholarship supports students attending Mississippi’s public universities as well as Southern University in Baton Rouge, Tony’s alma mater.

Angela said the family chose to establish the scholarship with the Community Foundation because they wanted it to last.

“We wanted it to be a scholarship that would be an endowed type of scholarship that would go on and on and on,” she said. “That’s why we chose the foundation, because we knew the scholarship would be in good hands.”

In 2005, family and friends got to work raising the $25,000 needed to endow the fund. By 2006, the first scholarship was awarded. This year marks 20 years of scholarship support through the fund. Each year, scholarship recipients are recognized during the awards luncheon at the Mississippi Juvenile Justice Symposium, an annual gathering focused on issues affecting youth and the juvenile justice system in Mississippi.

Angela is quick to say the family did not do it alone. Friends, family members, church members, colleagues and classmates all helped get the scholarship started. Contributors included Tony’s and Angela’s friends and coworkers, members of Holy Family Catholic Church, friends of Anthony Jr. and Aja from Tougaloo College, and extended family in Louisiana and Texas.

A number of people have also helped steward the scholarship over the years. Tony’s brother, Henry Gobar, has served on the selection committee from the beginning, along with Dr. Alfred Martin and Kenny Wheatley. Others, including Lasine Hilliard and Dr. Aja Gobar, have also helped support the scholarship effort. Two decades later, some of the original committee members are still helping select recipients each year.

“I would just want to acknowledge that those people really did help us as well and have continued to be a part of this worthwhile scholarship effort,” Angela said.

Over the years, she has also received thank-you letters from scholarship recipients. Those notes, she said, have been especially meaningful reminders of what the fund continues to make possible.

The Next Generation Giving Forward

For Anthony Gobar Jr., the scholarship is both a public legacy and a personal one.

He was just six days away from his 19th birthday when his father died. Now, as he prepares to turn 41, he says the lessons his father taught him still shape the way he lives.

“He was probably the quintessential man,” Anthony Jr. said. “The way that he lived his life, it showed me how I should live my life.”

Today, Anthony Jr. is beginning to take on the day-to-day responsibilities of the scholarship from his mother, with Aja close by to help. He sees that transition as both an honor and a responsibility.

“I’m in a position to essentially continue his legacy,” he said.

Even though he did not go into juvenile justice himself, Anthony Jr. said he still sees his father’s influence in the way he tries to guide younger people around him.

“There will be no spotlight or anything for the things that I try to instill in them,” he said. “I consider that a portion of continuing his legacy.”

Whether those interactions are with teenagers or young adults in their 20s, he said he tries to help keep them on the right path using both his own life experience and the foundation his father gave him.

At the Community Foundation for Mississippi, the Anthony “Tony” Gobar Juvenile Justice Scholarship Fund is more than a scholarship. It is a lasting tribute to a man who quietly changed lives and to a family determined to make sure his example continues shaping the future for generations of young people.

Twenty-five years after his death, the work of architect and educator Samuel Mockbee continues to shape how people think about design, justice and the American South. Now, a new effort, Better Together: Samuel Mockbee’s Dream for an American Future, is working to bring that influence back into public view.

Mockbee, a long-time Jacksonian and co-founder of Auburn University’s Rural Studio, is widely recognized for redefining architectural education and insisting that design carries a moral responsibility. Yet much of his personal archive, including the drawings, journals, and objects that reveal how those ideas took shape, has remained largely out of view, held privately by his family for more than two decades.

“There’s really nothing to be seen publicly or currently on view for public viewing or access,” said his daughter, Carol Mockbee. “And his students are at a point where they’re asking, where is his work and how do we have access to that?”

That is about to change.

An Intimate Portrait, 25 Years On

Better Together brings together more than 300 original artifacts — many never publicly exhibited — offering a rare look at Mockbee’s work.

The materials range from early sketches and architectural drawings to journals, correspondence and personal objects, offering an intimate portrait of a designer whose thinking evolved over time. For years, former students and colleagues have asked where they might encounter more of Mockbee’s work beyond the well-known Rural Studio projects.

“It’s been 25 years since anyone’s really seen much of it,” Mockbee said. “There is more than enough to see and discuss and be inspired by.”

Heaven in the Details

Those who knew Mockbee often describe him as “larger than life.” But the materials in this collection tell a quieter story, built from small, deliberate choices.

In his sketchbooks, first marks appear less like finished drawings and more like feelings on paper. As Mockbee once wrote, “The initial sketch is always an emotion, not a concept.”

That sense of intention runs throughout the archive.

“Everything he touched and did was so intentional,” Carol said. “Everything had meaning to it.”

His journals weave together myth, observation and lived experience, wrestling with the realities of the South like race, poverty and rural isolation, while searching for ways design might dignify people and place. As collaborator Josh McManus put it, “Heaven is in the details.”

While Rural Studio brought national attention to Mockbee’s work, Better Together places his art, writing and architecture side by side, revealing a fuller picture of his life and work.

Southern Odysseys and a Shared Vision

One of the guiding ideas behind the project draws from Mockbee’s “Southern Odysseys,” journeys across the rural South designed to challenge assumptions and deepen understanding.

“The Odysseys were built to square perception with reality through immersive experience,” said McManus, who was also inspired by Mockbee’s work, shaping how he has interacted with communities across the country.

Mockbee once wrote, “We must use the opportunity to survey our own backyards either to see what makes them special, individual and beautiful.” It was a call to look more closely, stay longer and see differently.

McManus connects those journeys to Mockbee’s formative experiences in the 1960s, when he left Mississippi for Fort Benning alongside a racially diverse group of soldiers during desegregation. Over time, Mockbee came to believe and demonstrate that people were, in fact, better together.

Now, the project’s collaborators, including the Mockbee family, McManus and architect and educator Jennifer Bonner, plan to invite curators, connectors and patrons from across the country to experience both Mockbee’s work and the South firsthand, helping inform future collections, exhibitions and archival efforts.

Rooted in Mississippi, Built for the Future

While Better Together is envisioned for a national audience, its roots remain firmly in Mississippi.

“We want to make sure that the heart of all of this remains right where his heart was, and that’s in Mississippi,” McManus said.

Through the Mockbee Better Together Fund at the Community Foundation for Mississippi, supporters have a way to help preserve and share the collection while expanding its reach.

For Carol, jumpstarting this project and creating this fund is also deeply personal.

“Every time I meet someone who knew my father, I’m always waiting for the story,” she said. “Because there’s always a story.”

Though Mockbee’s influence has often been felt more than seen over the last several decades, Better Together offers a chance to engage directly with his work.

“In aggregate, he was a giant,” McManus said. “But broken down piece by piece, he was an average person who made a lot of choices to try to be on the right side of history.”

If successful, the project may do more than revisit a remarkable career. It may help a new generation see how those choices, made consistently and thoughtfully, can still ripple outward today.

On his 42nd birthday, Donivon Duffy’s life changed overnight — literally.

“I woke up the morning of a wedding and had doubled in size,” he recalled of a trip to New Orleans to celebrate a friend’s big day in 2023. Fluid had built up in his body and lungs. “I could not lie down. The only thing I could do was sit up. And because the blood pressure was so high and there was so much fluid on my lungs, I couldn’t do anything but sit down. It felt like something was crushing my lungs, cutting it all off.”

What followed was a whirlwind: lab work, alarming charts and a flurry of messages from a close friend who happened to be a vascular surgeon. “By the time I got out of the shower, I had dozens of calls and texts from him all saying the same thing, ‘Hey, get to Baptist now. ER is awaiting you. Do not stop anywhere.’”

That crisis led to a new reality: dialysis four days a week and, unexpectedly, to a new purpose.

For Duffy, the story of the Manors Foundation begins with realizing that even small acts of help can change someone’s day, and sometimes their life.

He traces it back to a moment in a clinic waiting room, when he overheard a young woman struggling to afford her balance. “I was just being a good Samaritan,” he said. After a humorous misunderstanding, Donivon quietly stepped in. “I covered the cost. It was only a difference of 37 bucks.”

Seeing the happiness that $37 brought stayed with him. “That felt good, because I saw the joy it brought them. And I was like, “Wow, 37 bucks can bring somebody joy. Then let’s just keep doing that.’ Here we are.”

Seeing the Gap: Getting to Treatment

As Duffy adjusted to his own dialysis schedule, he began to see the critical barriers many kidney patients faced and knew something could be done.

Through conversations with the Mississippi Kidney Foundation and social workers at dialysis clinics, a clear need not being covered emerged: reliable, safe and affordable rides to treatment.

A social worker at a clinic told Duffy about “a young lady who was having trouble getting from Utica to the facility in Clinton, and she would take Uber Health,” he said. While services like Uber Health can offer discounted rides for health care, they’re not always dependable, especially for rural areas. “It’s just at your own peril, so it can be canceled at any point. Sometimes it may not show up.”

“I do dialysis four days a week, I know just how important that is,” he said. “Missing treatment isn’t an option.” His response? Build a community of goodwill drivers dedicated to getting patients where they need to be.

“If I can just develop a community of drivers, instead of just these drivers that are trying to pay bills, we can give them ‘good deed pay.'”

As the Manors Foundation’s first initiative, he envisions recruiting drivers who already have strong ties and trust in the community, from highway and sheriff’s associations to first responders, medical professionals and retirees. “They already have established community trust by simply having the badge and the uniform,” he said. That trust, he believes, helps address the concerns that can come with other transportation models.

Connecting with the Community Foundation for Mississippi

With a clear mission and a defined gap to fill, Duffy says partnering with CFM to create the Manors Foundation Fund and Manors Foundation Endowment Fund gives donors and partners confidence that their support would be handled responsibly and for the long term.

“Everybody can go out there and say they have a nonprofit. But I think with the legacy that Community Foundation has, not only in the community but throughout the state of Mississippi, is something that you just can’t put a price tag, so to speak. There is legitimacy.”

That structure and reputation now give Duffy a powerful message when he talks with potential sponsors and grantmakers.

“It feels good now when I’m writing letters, because when I’m applying for another grant, and it feels good to be able to tell them, ‘Hey, your money will be managed via the Community Foundation.'”

With an ambitious ultimate fundraising goal of $1 million and a more immediate goal of raising $100,000 this year, plus recruiting 50 to 100 drivers, the foundation is building towards its next phase.

For Duffy, the Manors Foundation is about much more than rides or fundraising targets. “The Manors Foundation really is the story. While it is about giving, abating and helping people, the message we want to give out is hope and motivation,” he said. “If I can do it, anybody can do it.”

In just two years, he has turned personal crisis into community-centered action. Now, with funds at the Community Foundation for Mississippi providing a trusted home for charitable support, Donivon is poised to help kidney patients across our region not just get to treatment, but find hope along the way.

When a Natchez public school teacher reached out to Dixon Books asking for 151 copies of Animal Farm, bookstore owner Jennifer Boone didn’t just see an invoice, she saw a barrier. She knew the school didn’t have a budget for extra books, and that many students would struggle to buy their own copies.

“I thought, public schools don’t have money for this, and students shouldn’t have to choose between a book and something else they need,” she recalled. That moment crystallized an idea she’d been carrying for years: using her love of books to make reading more accessible to young people in her community.

The result is Vicki’s Books for Kids Fund at the Community Foundation for Mississippi, named in honor of her late mother, Vicki, a tireless advocate for literacy. Vicki volunteered in Hattiesburg at Palmer’s Crossing, in public schools and with adult literacy efforts. She believed that reading was more than a skill, it was a kind of power.

Before the pandemic, Jennifer found her own way of carrying that legacy, reading with third graders at Stewpot’s after-school program twice a week. “Reading empowers kids,” she said. “And holding a new book that is theirs, that has never been anybody else’s, gives them a sense of ownership and belonging. Books were almost like a security blanket to me. If I’m surrounded by them, I’m happy.”

So when the downstairs tenant moved out of the historic building her family owns with two business partners in downtown Natchez, Jennifer couldn’t get one picture out of her head: a bookstore filling the empty space. That vision became Dixon Books, which has quickly drawn both locals and tourists who pass through Natchez each year. Visitors from Mississippi River cruises wander in, eager for local stories and history, exactly the kinds of titles Jennifer is working to gather in one place.

Amid the bustle of running the shop, opportunities to give back kept appearing. There was the teacher’s bulk order, and even a simple ordering mistake – accidentally receiving 42 extra copies of Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Party Pooper – that Jennifer chose to turn into a classroom donation. Those moments convinced her that the bookstore could be more than a business, it could be a bridge between generous donors, eager readers and classrooms in need.

Through Vicki’s Books for Kids Fund, Jennifer now has a way to honor her mother’s memory and support Natchez for years to come. Working with the Community Foundation for Mississippi, she envisions helping teachers, schools and child-focused programs put brand-new books into the hands of young readers, sometimes one classroom at a time or through larger initiatives as the fund grows.

“I don’t know exactly what it will look like yet,” Jennifer admits. “But I know this: kids having their own books matters. And this is a way to keep my mom’s spirit alive in the world.”

The end of the year will be here soon! The Community Foundation for Mississippi has several important dates for you to keep in mind as you think about year-end giving to ensure your financial contributions make an impact with nonprofits by December 31, 2025.

If you are planning end-of-year grants from or to a fund:

• The last day to submit a grant request through our donor portal to ensure processing for the 2025 calendar year is Tuesday, December 16, 2025. All grant requests made after December 16, 2025 may not be processed until Thursday, January 8, 2026.
• The last day to request a check for a vendor is Tuesday, December 16, 2025 to ensure the check will be sent and processed by December 31, 2025. All vendor check requests made after December 16, 2025 may not be processed until Thursday, January 8, 2026.
• Donating stock? All notifications of stock donations must be made before Friday, December 19, 2025. Click here to download our stock donation form.
• Donations by check will be processed by their check and postmark date. Donations postmarked by December 31, 2025 will be acknowledged as being given during the 2025 calendar year. Gifts can be made online via credit card as late as 11:45 p.m. on December 31, 2025 or by mailing a check to 119 S. President St., First Floor, Jackson, MS 39201.

Other important things to note:

• Endow Mississippi tax credits will renew on January 1, 2026. This program provides a 25% tax credit to donors who give to permanent endowments at qualified community foundations. Click here to learn more and download an application for your 2026 submission.

The Community Foundation for Mississippi upcoming closures:

• Limited office hours begin starting Monday, December 22. The CFM office will be closed Wednesday, December 24, 2025 through Friday, January 2, 2026.
• For emergencies, please contact Jane Alexander at jane@formississippi.org.
• Offices will reopen on Monday, January 5, 2026.

Have questions? Reach out to us at kwiandt@formississippi.org!

Tax Rules Are Changing: Give More Before 2026

As we approach the end of 2025, many donors are taking advantage of a rare moment in charitable giving — one that allows them to maximize both their impact and their tax benefits. With several federal and state tax changes taking effect in 2026, this year offers a unique window to “stack” or “bunch” charitable contributions by making 2025, 2026 and even 2027 gifts now.

Here’s why many donors are choosing to give before December 31, 2025 (and why you may want to talk with your tax professional about doing the same):

Federal tax rules will tighten in 2026

• New deduction floor: Starting in 2026, itemizers can only deduct charitable gifts above 0.5% of AGI. In 2025, every eligible dollar is deductible.

• Reduced value for high earners: New caps will limit the value of itemized deductions beginning next year.

What this means: Giving a larger, combined gift in 2025 allows you to lock in today’s more favorable federal rules.

Mississippi income tax rates are dropping

Mississippi’s income tax rate will fall from 4.4% in 2025 to 4.0% in 2026, meaning deductions are worth slightly more this year.

In short: The same gift shelters more taxable income in 2025 than it will in 2026.

Endow Mississippi offers a powerful incentive

A gift of $1,000 or more to an endowed fund at CFM may qualify for a 25% state tax credit, in addition to standard deductions. Credits are limited and require a short application. Learn more below.

With these changes ahead, 2025 may be the most advantageous year to support the causes you care about. If you’re considering a gift, we encourage you to speak with your tax advisor — and we’re here if you have questions about giving options through CFM.

You can make a secure online gift anytime at formississippi.org/donate.