Baby inspires NIC nursing scholarship

North Idaho College nursing students are establishing a scholarship fund in remembrance of the 1-year-old daughter of a classmate who died in December.

The Madelyn Isabella Sapp Memorial Scholarship will be given to second-year nursing students who are “struggling” emotionally or financially, said Dan Franklin, a classmate of the girl’s father, Greg Sapp.

In a field such as nursing, students learn how fragile life is, Franklin said, and how important it is to have care and compassion.

The scholarship serves as a reminder of “what it’s all about,” Franklin said.

The day after Christmas, the Sapps discovered that Madelyn had an infection. She slipped into a coma and later suffered a stroke. Her parents decided to discontinue life support on Dec. 28, seven days after her first birthday.

NIC’s two-year nursing program is competitive, so the class sizes are small; this year’s graduating class is about 50. That makes for a very tight-knit group, Franklin said.

“They really wanted to establish some memorial for their daughter anyway,” Franklin said of the Sapps. The students’ idea to create a scholarship “hit them emotionally pretty hard,” he added. “Greg has told me it’s helping him through the grieving process.”

Greg Sapp, of Rathdrum, could not be reached for comment Tuesday. He and his wife, Leeanne, a master’s candidate in social work at Eastern Washington University, have two other daughters, Daphne, 6, and Ayiana, 3.

In a statement released by NIC on Tuesday, Leeanne Sapp said: “I can’t express how much it means to me to have (Madelyn’s) name tied to something so positive that will live on forever. It’s been a real ray of hope through it all and has been something that’s gotten me through when I feel like I don’t have the energy to be strong anymore.”