The House of Giving Hearts

John Habgood (BSF '66, MBA '72) and Dr. Mary Kay Habgood (BSN '67, MSN '71)

It all started with a house.

A casual bungalow —raised high on stilts along the Santa Fe River —where St. Pete residents John Habgood and Dr. Mary Kay Habgood would escape on the weekends with their two young sons to, "enjoy nature and the great outdoors," as John says.

Over the years, the Gator couple's "little stilt house" in Fort White became a hub for family and friends. There were weekend sleepovers for their sons' soccer teammates—"I think our record is having 18 little boys all lined up in sleeping bags on the porch," said Mary Kay—lazy afternoons jumping off the big swing over the river; and when the boys went off to college (UF, naturally), the house hosted plenty of game day celebrations for Gator football and basketball.

When their sons married and had children of their own, the house witnessed a new generation of Habgoods learning to fish, tube and waterski on the waters of the Santa Fe.

"That house holds a lot of memories," said John, a retired fiscal administrator for the city of St. Petersburg.

So, in 2018, when the Habgoods decided they wanted to help more young people get a great UF education, the little stilt house was put to one last use: as a gift to support UF nursing students.

Built on stilts to accommodate rising waters, the Habgoods’ weekend house became a gift to support UF nursing students.

The type of gift they chose—a charitable remainder unitrust, funded with the proceeds from the sale of their house—pays them income over their lifetimes, with the remainder going to scholarships for undergraduate students at the UF College of Nursing (CON), where Mary Kay is both an alumna and a professor emeritus.

The generous couple's Gator roots go back to the 1960s, when they began dating on campus as undergraduates. John earned a bachelor's degree in forestry in 1966 and an MBA in 1972; Mary Kay obtained her bachelor's of nursing in 1967 and followed up with an MSN in 1971, mentored by CON's founding dean, Dorothy M. Smith.

The couple moved to St. Petersburg, where John distinguished himself in city administration and helped bring the Salvador Dali Museum to the downtown. Meanwhile, Mary Kay obtained a doctorate in measurement and research from the University of South Florida; she went on to teach medical and surgical nursing at UF and was appointed in 2000 to the Florida State Board of Nursing, overseeing licensing and certification for the state's nurses.

In 1997, the couple established the John F. and Dr. Mary Habgood Scholarship/Fellowship Fund at UF. The dual fund supports both undergraduate students at CON and MBA students at the Warrington College of Business.

Giving back is something Mary Kay learned firsthand from Dean Smith, she said.

"We're just carrying out Dean Smith's original message," said Mary Kay. "John and I have been very gifted in our lives, with wonderful experiences at UF and wonderful friends.

"It's incumbent on us to share that with others because we couldn't have gotten through it ourselves without a few helping hands along the way."

Learn more about ways you, like the Habgoods, can give a helping hand to UF students. Contact UF's Office of Estate & Gift Planning at giftplanning@uff.ufl.edu or 352-392-5512, toll free at 866-317-4143 to learn more.