With their support for students in need, Jim and Gigi Green have been pillars of the Mason community for over 25 years. (Photo by Christopher Bobo)
At the root of Jim and Gayle “Gigi” Green’s Mason story is the impact education can have, from parent to child, generation to generation. That is why the Greens recently pledged an additional $50,000 to the Boydie Logan Memorial Scholarship, named in honor of Jim’s father.
Boydie Logan was a North Carolina native with a knack for numbers who lied about his age to join the U.S. Army, but never received a college education himself. He served 30 years, earning the rank of Master Sergeant. He started his own extermination business, but always suspected he would have done even better with an education—an opportunity he didn’t want his children to pass up.
“He and my mom [Doris], they always talked about how you need an education or you’re not going to go very far in this world,” said Jim. “Don’t just get it for yourself [they said]. Try to help other people along the way to do the same thing. They didn’t tell me how to do it. All they said was to try.”
The Greens established the Boydie Logan Memorial Scholarship in 2000 to support students affiliated with the Early Identification Program (EIP), Mason’s college prep program that aims to support middle and high school students who will be the first in their families to attend college. The Greens’ recent pledge of $50,000 to the endowment ensures EIP students will benefit from this scholarship for years to come.
The Boydie Logan endowment is in addition to another scholarship the couple started, the W. James and Gayle Green Scholarship Endowment, which supports student-athletes.
“When you think about an institution like Mason and our community, as well-off as Fairfax is, and you hear about some of the struggles these kids in EIP have gone through—I think it brings people back to reality,” said Jim.
“We need to do more to help people who have gone through hardships, and EIP is the program that can help them, especially as first-generation college students,” said Gigi.
The Greens have been pillars in the Mason community for over 25 years. Jim is a long-time member of the University Life Advisory Board, previously known as the Minority Advisory Board, and the Diversity Advisory Board. Jim also served on the George Mason University Foundation’s Board of Trustees. He was central to the creation of University Life’s Diversity Scholarship Golf Classic, an annual event that has raised over $700,000 in its lifetime for first-generation student scholarships, and has co-chaired the event for 25 years.
Gigi graduated from Mason with a BIS in media management and earned her MA in telecommunications. She also served on the University Life Advisory Board and the Patriot Club Advisory Board. Gigi is also founder and president of the Cookie Jar Club (CJC) whose members have raised $43,000 for the CJC/EIP Endowment at Mason since 2010.
A true Patriot family, their daughter and granddaughter also received master’s degrees from Mason.
“Mason has some of the best professors in the country, if not the world,” said Gigi. “So we still want to give back to other students because our girls have been successful in their careers because of those degrees.”
Christopher Bobo, 11/23/2021