This Season of Giving, we are grateful to celebrate a generous gift that honors a life well lived and a legacy of mentorship. Through a fundraiser organized by a group of Lynn Parkhill’s friends, $12,225, was raised for the Lynn Parkhill Memorial Taco Sombrero Scholarship benefiting students at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College. In fact, two students have already received $500 scholarships: one in 2024-25 and one in 2025-2026.

The fundraiser was led in part by longtime friends David Shoemake and Alfred Sexton along with heartfelt outreach to community members who wanted to help remember Lynn in a meaningful way. Currently awarded once each year, the group is committed to continuing their efforts to fully endow the scholarship, with the goal of providing support to students every semester. 

“Lynn was an exceptional person who deserves to be remembered,” Shoemake said. “He sent so many high school students who worked for him at Taco Sombrero on to greater things. Some of them went to the Culinary Arts program at MGCCC, which is an outstanding program. We thought this was a great way to remember him.” 

Shoemake, a painting contractor, briefly attended MGCCC’s Perkinston Campus in his youth, and has more recently worked on two MGCCC STEM buildings at the Jackson County and Harrison County Campuses. “The college is so much a part of the Gulf Coast community, just like Lynn was,” he said. “It seems fitting that we make sure he is remembered through a scholarship there.”

During our MGCCC Season of Giving, gifts to the MGCCC Foundation make a direct impact on students through scholarships like the one dedicated to Lynn Parkhill’s memory. 

To learn more about donating to the MGCCC Foundation, visit https://mgccc.edu/mgccc-foundation/ways-to-give/