A few passing clouds. Low 21F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph..
A few passing clouds. Low 21F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph.
Updated: February 17, 2025 @ 3:26 pm
Wayne Harold
Wayne Harold
Mercy House, a Harrisonburg nonprofit focused on helping people avoid homelessness, announced the creation of the J. Wayne Harold Memorial Scholarship last month.
According to a news release from Mercy House, the annual scholarship will provide financial assistance to students and adults who have experienced homelessness and received shelter services from Mercy House, supporting their pursuit of higher education, trade school, or vocational training.
The scholarship is named for Wayne Harold, a Mercy House volunteer who died after a battle with cancer last September. Harold retired from Shenandoah Valley Electric Cooperative in 2014 after working as a lineman for 40 years. He is survived by his wife, Sharon, and his sons Jeremy and Josh.
Sharon Harold said her husband struggled to slow down after he retired from a job he loved.
“He always loved the storms,” Harold said. “He loved being out and helping people get the electricity back on. He just loved to take care of people. When he retired in 2014, he was a person who couldn’t just sit around and not do something.”
Joe Nelson, an operations and construction manager with the Electric Cooperative, trained under Harold when he started with the co-op about 20 years ago. He said Harold was a laid-back mentor who never hesitated to share his knowledge.
“He was my boss for the whole time I was there,” Nelson said. “He was a lead-by-example type of guy, always real easy to work with. He would explain what we needed to do and help us do it. He knew his work, and he was good at teaching others.”
After retiring, Wayne Harold volunteered with a few nonprofits before starting at Mercy House, Sharon said. However, once he started there, he used his skills as a carpenter and electrician to help the nonprofit thrive.
Shannon Porter, executive director of Mercy House, said Harold’s efforts over his 10 years volunteering for the nonprofit helped save tens of thousands of dollars in labor.
“He gave us countless hours and thousands of dollars of in-kind assistance in doing repairs and renovations all across our campus,” Porter said. “He was pretty much the key player in a renovation that we did to our residential resource center, which allowed us to create more shelter space. He didn’t take a dime.”
Porter said Harold volunteered at Mercy House for hundreds of hours yearly and became “part of the family” among the nonprofit’s regular staff. He also served as a member of Mercy House’s board of directors for six years and kept trying to work as he became more and more ill with cancer, Porter said.
The initial scholarship amount will be $5,000, which may be awarded to a single recipient or divided among multiple applicants based on the quality of the applicant pool, according to the news release. The Harold family will review applications and select the award recipient annually. The scholarship application will be available beginning March 3 and will be awarded in May.
Contact Richard H. Hronik III at rhronik@dnronline.com, 540-208-3278, or on Twitter @rhronikDNR
Wayne Harold
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