Navarros donate $1M to YSU for student jobs, scholarships

YOUNGSTOWN

A Boardman couple’s $1 million gift to Youngstown State University will be used to fund scholarships and increase the number of campus jobs available to students.

President Jim Tressel announced the gift Wednesday morning from Flor “Shorty” and Elba Lillian Navarro.

“I really did not want this publicity,” Elba Navarro said to the people packed into the first floor of Tod Hall on campus. “Paul [McFadden, president of the YSU Foundation] talked me into this.”

She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from YSU and is a retired city schoolteacher.

Her husband came to the city from Puerto Rico as a teenager. He was 14 when he walked to a gas station on Wilson Avenue and asked the owner for a job.

Two years later, with his dad as a co-signer, Shorty Navarro bought the gas station from the same man.

“Now you can see why we’re so proud to be affiliated with this couple,” Tressel said.

Read more about this giving couple in Thursday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.