Sterling women receive educational support through P.E.O. philanthropies

Several Sterling-area women received educational support through P.E.O. philanthropies, a network that says it has helped more than 129,000 women pursue educational goals and has provided about $462 million in assistance as of July 2025. The money flows through scholarships, grants, awards and loans, the same tools P.E.O. uses to keep women moving through higher education when costs start to pile up.

P.E.O. traces its start to Jan. 21, 1869, when Hattie Briggs, Alice Coffin, Ella Stewart, Suela Pearson, Franc Roads, Alice Bird and Mary Allen founded the sisterhood at Iowa Wesleyan College in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. The organization now says its membership includes more than half a million women in the United States and Canada, giving the Sterling area a local connection to a much larger educational network.

One of P.E.O.’s longest-running commitments is Cottey College in Nevada, Missouri, which the sisterhood has supported since 1927. That college remains part of the organization’s broader education mission, alongside the scholarship, grant and loan programs that help women stay enrolled, return to school or keep training on track.

In Colorado, P.E.O. describes itself as a philanthropic educational organization for women built on service, philanthropy, love and friendship, with friendship at the center of the sisterhood. The Colorado State Scholarship Fund was approved at the state convention in June 2007 and established in the P.E.O. Foundation that same year, adding a Colorado-specific path for women who need help paying for school.

For Logan County, that matters in practical terms. When a Sterling woman faces tuition bills that outpace her savings, or needs another bridge back to school after time away, P.E.O.’s mix of national and state philanthropy is built to cover that gap. The local beneficiaries put that mission into view, showing how a women-to-women support system can reach into a small community and make education possible.