Text by Nicole Carlson Easley
Photo by Katherine Griswold

Working with the Northwest Connecticut Community Foundation, Norfolk resident Sally Vaun has recently endowed a scholarship fund to support local students studying medicine and healthcare.

Vaun spent much of her childhood playing in the rolling farmland of Pennsylvania. She worked on her family’s farm, tending to chickens, turkeys and sheep. Living in a close-knit community of farmers, she often helped her friends with their chores, feeding the chickens and collecting eggs, so they could run off to play or sneak a ride on a nearby cow, climbing up on its bony back and trotting around the pasture to wild giggles.

By the 1960s, she was working as a volunteer in the emergency room at Hartford Hospital, prepping gurneys, greeting patients and helping family members navigate the hospital. It was there that she met William Vaun, a young doctor completing his residency.

A year later, they were married. Bill had grown up in Hartford, the son of Greek immigrants. His father died young of throat cancer. “Bill’s family lived modestly,” says Vaun. “His mother was not sure he should go to college at all. I think it was losing his father that inspired him to become a doctor. He wanted to help people experiencing illness.”

A recipient of the Jacob L. and Lewis Fox Foundation Scholarship, Bill Vaun attended Trinity College as an undergraduate and continued on to the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. After graduation, he joined the United States Air Force and worked at the Pentagon. Throughout his career, Vaun practiced internal medicine, specializing in endocrinology. He taught at St. Luke’s Hospital, the Cleveland Clinic, Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, focusing on the future of medicine.

“Bill was meticulous as a physician and a brilliant diagnostician,” his wife recalls with pride. “Colleagues brought him the most difficult cases.”

Wherever they settled, Sally Vaun quickly became involved in caring for animals, adopting retired racehorses and volunteering. In New Jersey, she organized a horseback riding program for children with physical and developmental disabilities and volunteered with the Junior League. “It was just so heartwarming to see children, who were often in a wheelchair, riding, being so active and feeling more confident. You could see it in their faces. Their teachers would tell me, ‘He is so assertive now. Before he was reluctant to do things. Now he takes part much more in the school.’” 

After retiring, the couple settled in Norfolk, and Sally Vaun soon became active in the Norfolk Historical Society and the Norfolk Community Association and served on the Alumni Board of Chase Collegiate School in Waterbury.

In 2014, Bill passed away from complications of Alzheimer’s, a disease he had spent years researching. In 2021, after speaking with advisers and considering the needs of the local community, Sally Vaun decided to establish the Northwest Connecticut Community Foundation William and Sally Vaun Scholarship Fund. The fund awards scholarships both to students pursuing degrees in medicine and healthcare for both humans and animals and to students pursuing degrees in environmental studies, specifically ecology and environmental sciences.

“Bill and I always knew we wanted to give back, and we were fortunate to be able to,” says Vaun. “If everybody would give a little, the world, and our little corner of it, would be so much better.” As an endowed fund, the principal of the William and Sally Vaun Scholarship Fund will continue to grow, ensuring that money will be available to support local students and strengthen education in the Northwest Corner far into the future.

“There is a need for medical professionals serving people and animals,” says Vaun. “It’s important that we help young people become educated, to see what’s happening and to be able to make things better. People and animals need to be cared for.”