“We Look for the Kids that Sound Really Motivated”: An Interview With Jean Mackenzie

Upon returning home from Summer Session at Boston University, I was casting around for possible story ideas when my father received an e-mail from Ms. Jean Mackenzie asking if I would consider writing about the Paul Koster Memorial Fund. Being familiar with Ms. Mackenzie and her family from many visits to their fish market, The Clamman, over the years, and having received one of the Fund’s scholarships in 2011, I eagerly agreed and quickly contacted her to set up a time for a phone interview.

Zoe Strassfield (ZS): Hello, Jean? 

Jean Mackenzie (JM): Yes?

ZS: This is Zoe.

JM: Oh hi, Zoe, how are you doing?

ZS: I’m good, is everything good?

JM: Yes, everything’s good.

ZS:  So you’re okay with doing this interview now?

JM: Yeah, yeah, this is a good time.

ZS: Okay. So, I just wanted to start off with the basics. Could you please state your name and who you are, just tell us a little about yourself?

JM: Well, I’m Jean Mackenzie, and I guess you want to know about the Paul Koster benefit and what we do there?

ZS: Yes.

JM: So, let’s see… The fundraiser is a memorial benefit fundraiser, it’s in the memory of my husband, Paul Koster. He was “The Clamman”, they called him “The Clamman”. In Southampton he ran a fish market with that name and he was also active with a lot of community organizations, specifically with the children’s organizations, the soccer teams, and the SYA, the Southampton Youth Association. There was no SYS back when we first started this , it was only SYA. He was really involved with all these children’s programs, and he used to cook dinners for these people at the end of the season. Me and the kids would serve it and it was a lot of fun, we supported the teams. 

So anyway, he had a very bad accident and died suddenly, and I was at a soccer game and Mary Ann Epley said to me “Oh, what are we going to do this year?” and I said “Oh my gosh, I don’t know what do to, I don’t cook, Paul did all of that.” So she said, “Let’s have a cocktail party or something like that to raise money and then we can use the money to give back to the kids.” 

So we started doing that and one thing led to another, and we turned it into a 501(c)3, and instead of giving all the money to one organization, we starting giving money to the SYA, to SYS, and we gave out scholarships to High School graduates. The money was going to kids who wanted to continue educating themselves. They are not required to go to college, but they have to have a goal, something they want to do that shows their motivation in life.

For instance, in the earlier days of this benefit, thinking back, I can remember one young woman who said that she wasn’t ready to go to college but that she wanted to take a course so that she could teach English to kids in third-world countries. And she had some countries that she wanted to go to and work with a volunteer group, teach English and help them. And so she received a scholarship. So it seems to me, there’s less of that now and more of kids just wanting to go to college.

Another young person wasn’t looking to go to college, but was looking to go to trade school for a particular trade, and they didn’t have the funds to do it, so we gave them the funds. So you don’t have to be some straight-A student looking to go to an expensive college, you can be a kid who’s just really motivated and wants to open their own beauty parlor or their own service station. I hope I’m getting this across, but when we read the essays, we look for the kids who sound really motivated to do things and better the world around them. 

ZS: So that’s what you look for when you’re looking at the essays, you’re looking for motivation and a desire to keep learning.

JM: Yeah, yeah. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be “I want to go to the University of Whatever” or “I want to go to SUNY Plattsburgh”, going to college is not required. For a scholarship from us, it just has to be something they want to do that will further their education, and if you can get that across to us, then you’re eligible. … So that’s the really exciting part of giving this money away, seeing what people come up with.

ZS:  How many years have you been giving these scholarships out so far?

JM: This is our thirteenth year.

ZS: Okay. That’s a lot of students, isn’t it?

JM: Yes. In the beginning, it was just a little bit of money, and now, this year we gave out seven scholarships, seven thousand dollars worth of scholarships. And all of the essays are read blind, I think you probably know this already, we do not know who the participants are. The school, before they give us the essays, they white-out the students’ names, so that we, the five people on the board, don’t know. We don’t want to be affected by knowing that it’s our neighbor or our friend down the street. …

Another act of growth within the organization has been that we now accept applications from schools within Southampton Town, which means that Westhampton High School and Hampton Bays High School and Bridgehampton High School can submit applications for consideration also, it’s not just Southampton Village. I think that’s great.

ZS: Do you have any stories about what some of the earliest people who got the scholarship have accomplished since?

JM: Well, I can tell you that there’s one young boy who it was quite a surprise to find we had selected, he had a bit of a reputation for getting in trouble, but-- wow, what a fabulous essay he wrote, who would ever have thought. He hand-wrote the essay with a pencil for crying out loud, but it made such an impression on us that he had the desire to do this stuff. We decided that he would be a recipient, and lo and behold, he left Southampton and went off into the world, he went to college, and completed college within five years with a full master’s degree in math education of all things. He fulfilled the goal that he said he wanted to do. He wanted to become a math teacher, he loved math, he was able to really get that across to us in many ways, talking about how he used math in his life and how he loved children. 

He did his student teaching, and so, right now he is applying for jobs in New York City and looking for a teaching position. I thought that was a real success story. Sometimes kids just need someone to have faith in them. And by giving him this money and saying “Here, take it”, he was able to do a fabulous job, he left town and did a great job. 

ZS: And how do things like that make you feel, what would you say is the feeling you get from stories like that?

JM: It’s so fulfilling, it feels so good, that what you’re doing is not just giving money. It’s nice to see when they come back to town and tell us what they’re doing. All of us on the board, we’re so happy, we have such big smiles when we see that we’re not working for nothing, we’re not just handing out money, but these people are doing what they say they want to in their essays. And that’s what we’re looking for, students that really mean it. Some kids are just like “Oh, I want to go to college, blah blah blah”, but those aren’t the essays we want. We want the essays where kids write from the heart, and that makes us feel so good when they come back and tell us they’re doing these things. You really feel like you’ve made a difference.

ZS: And at the same time, you’re still running The Clamman, and that’s still going very well, isn’t it?

JM: Yes, The Clamman is still running strong, and my youngest child, my son, has stepped into Paul’s place and he is now the head of The Clamman. When we do this, also, it’s a way of keeping Paul’s memory alive for the community. There are a lot of people, and a lot of kids who come up to get the scholarships, who don’t know who he was anymore. So it’s kind of nice that we can keep his memory alive in the community, because he was so active. They may not remember him, but they’ll come in the door and they’ll see his picture and read the articles we have there from newspapers, Waldo Tribune did one in their paper, and they framed it for us. And we have it on the wall, with his picture. People go, “Oh, that’s the party, we were at that event!” and they get the feel of who he was. It’s nice for the family, it’s nice for my kids to know that their dad is remembered within the community and it’s nice for us to give back in his name.

ZS: What are some of your favorite things about this community, what makes it so special to you? Why do you love Southampton like you do?

JM: I like Southampton because it’s still a small town. People still know one another, and when you walk down the street, people say “Hello” across the street to each other, even new people. We still have that small-town feel.

ZS: In the time that you’ve lived in Southampton, do you think that it has changed, and if so, how?

JM: Well, of course it’s changed, our population has increased. When I first moved out here, there was a skeleton crew at Southampton Hospital over the winter and the holidays and now the place never shuts, it’s full time all the time, and that’s a real indicator of the growth in our community.

ZS: When did you first move out here?

JM: The early ‘70s.

ZS: What are some of your favorite memories of your time living in Southampton?

JM: What are my favorite memories of living in Southampton?

ZS: Yes, for you and your family?

JM: Oh gosh, in the community. Well, we love being in the store and working together, all of us, and greeting the people.  We love the SYA summer camp, all of the kids have gone to it. We’ve gone swimming and sailing. Sleigh-riding at Shinnecock Golf Course—of course, you can’t do that anymore.

ZS: Thank you.

We’re very lucky to live in a community that has such caring individuals who continue to give back and want what’s best for its youth. 

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Photo courtesy of Paul Conroy and The Southampton Press, original caption: 

"Paul Koster Scholarship Recipients with Mrs Koster at the Awards ceremony held at Seasons of Southampton on Sunday June 16th 2013: