Helen A. D’Amour Helen D’Amour has been chosen to receive the Via Veritatis Award for 2008.

Helen A. D’Amour retired as vice president of the Bank of Boston in 1983 after a 46-year career in banking in which she was a pioneer for women in the industry. She began her career at the First National Bank of Amherst in 1937, and was named assistant vice president in 1973, and branch officer in 1976.

She graduated from the School of Banking at Williams College, the Graduate School of Banking at the University of Wisconsin, and the School of Management at Ball University in Indiana. In all of those schools, she was one of only a few women in classes of hundreds of men.

Ms. D’Amour served as a national committee member and president of the Springfield chapter of the AIB, and as chair, regional vice president, and a member of the national educational foundation of the National Association of Bank Women. She also served as a trustee of the School of Banking at Williams College, and on the advisory board of education for bank women at Simmons College.

She has been a trustee at Elms College, and served on the long-range financial planning committee. She was chair of the individual major donors in the “Envision Elms” Campaign, and volunteered in the campaigns to restore Our Lady’s Chapel and build the Maguire Center for Health and Fitness. She was awarded an honorary doctorate from Elms College in 1995.

Ms. D’Amour was the first loaned executive for the United Fund in 1968, began and chaired a women’s group for the Chamber of Commerce, served on the advisory board of the Salvation Army, and volunteered with the Young Women’s Christian Association. She is a volunteer at St. Mary’s Church.

She is the widow of Paul D’Amour, and has one daughter, a granddaughter, and four great-grandchildren. Her granddaughter Helen Marie Sbrega Lapointe ’86 and great-granddaughter Ashley Lapointe ’08 are Elms College alumnae. Her daughter-in-law Michele D’Amour is also receiving a Via Veritatis award.

Michele D’Amour Michele D’Amour has been chosen to receive the Via Veritatis Award for 2008.

Michele D’Amour is the educational partnership administrator for Big Y Foods Inc., a privately owned supermarket chain that operates 58 stores throughout Massachusetts and Connecticut and employs more than 10,000 people. In that role, she has been responsible for managing a variety of educational initiatives at Big Y, including the Homework Helpline.

Ms. D’Amour began working for Big Y in 1968 as a cashier while working her way through college. A graduate of Cathedral High School and Westfield State College, she holds a master’s degree in education from American International College. She has had a variety of teaching experiences and has also worked at the college level, supervising student teachers.

She taught C.C.D. for several years at St. Mary’s parish in Hampden, and has served on the board of the Springfield Diocesan Schools, the ad hoc committee to develop a strategic plan for the Diocese of Springfield (Vision 2010), and the Diocesan Blue Ribbon Commission. She is a past member of Johnson Memorial Hospital annual charity fundraiser, “JMH Women Helping Women” campaign; and was a participant in the Springfield Habitat for Humanity Women’s Build.

Ms. D’Amour was a founding member of the Somers Cultural Commission; served on the Somers Chapter 1 Parent Advisory Council; and is a corporator of the Springfield Museums.

Inspired by Pope John Paul II’s encyclical on Faith and Reason, Michele and her husband Donald co-founded the Fides et Ratio grant competition for small Catholic colleges, and the Fides et Ratio summer faculty seminars under the auspices of the Faith and Reason Institute in Washington D.C. They have also endowed academic scholarships for both of their elementary school alma maters, and are members of the western Massachusetts chapter of Legatus.

Margaret R. Scanlon graduated from the College of Our Lady of the Elms in 1952, and received a master’s degree in education here in 1966.

She was a kindergarten teacher for 40 years in the Springfield public schools from 1952 to 1992, and then was an adjunct professor at Springfield College for 10 more years. She retired in 2002, but she continues to supervise student teachers in the classroom.

She served as president of the Association for Childhood Education from 1965-66, and president of the Springfield Teachers Club from 1962-63 and again from 1988-2000. She is currently on their board of directors.

Ms. Scanlon was president of the Catholic Woman’s Club of Springfield for two terms, from 1998-2000 and 2004-2006, and is currently on their board of directors. She belongs to Holy Cross Church in Springfield, where she serves as a Eucharistic minister, home visitor, and is on the outreach to the poor committee.

She has been a volunteer at Elms in the Office of Institutional Advancement since 1992.

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