Linda Panarites Sweeting ’75 Makes Giving a Priority

Linda Panarites Sweeting ’75, scholarship recipient Bianca Camillaci ‘15, and Rick Sweeting

Focusing on students and their needs as a way of paying tribute to her family perfectly fits Linda Panarites Sweeting’s sensibilities regarding philanthropy. A 1975 graduate, she has been making gifts to SUNY Oswego’s annual fund and volunteering as a reunion gift organizer over the years, but always “hoped to do more.”

When she consulted with her husband, Rick, and her brother and sister-in-law, Steve and Jane Panarites, about honoring departed family members through an endowed scholarship, they were of one mind in creating a fund that would provide financial assistance to one entering student every four years. That student would come to SUNY Oswego from Spencerport or Hilton, alternately.

Sweeting spent much of her career in the alumni and development office at SUNY Brockport, where she saw the “difference a gift could make in the lives of the student and the donor.” She says she always wanted to make a gift to Oswego that went beyond supporting the annual fund, and she was inspired in philanthropy by many, especially Brockport faculty member emeritus Frances Moroney Whited ’44.

“I valued my time at Oswego and the education I received as a student,” Sweeting says. “Over the years, I’ve gotten to know and admire the work of the people in the Office of Development, and they have my complete trust to manage gifts to the college.”

Sweeting says her father’s people came to America from Greece, and even though they all valued education, only one of the siblings had the resources to complete a college degree. The Panarites-Sweeting Family Scholarship will ensure that the selected student will have help accessing higher education.

“When we talked to professionals at Oswego, we said we didn’t want to put a lot of restrictions on the choice of the recipient,” Sweeting says. “But when we met Bianca, the first recipient, and her family, we felt as if she had been hand picked for us.”

—Linda Loomis ’90 M ’97

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