TRENTON N.J.
Casey Duffy never pictured herself at the age of 28, raising a three-year-old son on her own and worrying about her family’s future. Then her husband Christopher Duffy, a 26-year-old National Guardsman, was killed in Baghdad when his convoy came under attack.
“I thought I would be home with my children and my husband would come back, and he would work,” said Duffy, a Bricktown resident. “That was the plan, but it didn’t work out that way.”
Duffy, who used to teach at a preschool before her husband was killed in June 2004, realized that job wouldn’t cover the bills. She needed to get her teaching certificate.
Now, thanks in part to a scholarship provided by the New Jersey League of Community Bankers, she can.
The organization, a trade association of community banks doing business in the state, has raised $250,000 to help dependents of troops who have died because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and is reaching out to prospective applicants who may need their help.
The scholarship is open to spouses or children of deceased troops, said James Meredith, the league’s executive vice president.
