First County Bank Foundation’s 2025 recipients of the Richard E. Taber Citizenship Award scholarships, which honors Fairfield County high school students who consistently demonstrate good citizenship at school, at home and in the community were recently announced.
The program awards scholarships to three deserving students and is designed to recognize and encourage young people who are honest, hard-working and helpful. Each year, First County Bank Foundation accepts student applications from the beginning of the year until the end of April. The award is named after Richard E. Taber who retired as chairman and CEO of First County Bank in March 2011. It is in recognition of Taber’s 40-plus-year career at the bank and innumerable contributions to the community.
Each of the following students was chosen to receive a $5,000 Richard E. Taber Citizenship Award scholarship: Amogh Ganjikunta, of Fairfield, attended Fairfield Warde High School and will attend Harvard University; Ashley Malkin of Greenwich, attended Greenwich High School and will attend Stanford University; and Teji Rawat of Stamford, attended Academy of Information Technology and Engineering and will attend Vanderbilt University.
“Every year, during the application evaluation process, we look forward to learning about how our young citizens are contributing to society and specifically their local community. We continue to be astonished by the high level of academics, leadership and volunteerism of the Richard E. Taber Citizenship Award applicants,” said Robert J. Granata, chairman and CEO, First County Bank and president, First County Bank Foundation.
Established in 2001 in honor of the bank’s 150th anniversary, First County Bank Foundation was created to distribute funds annually to nonprofit organizations that support community and economic development, affordable housing and programs that support quality of life and educational enrichment for children and families. As a mutual bank with no shareholders, First County Bank considers grants made by the foundation a means of paying dividends back to the local communities it serves.
Headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, for over 170 years, First County Bank is an independent mutual community bank with 13 branches in Stamford, Norwalk, Darien, Greenwich, Fairfield, New Canaan and Westport offering deposit products, mortgages, wealth management, business banking services and a full array of digital banking products.
First County Bank has more than 220 employees and assets in excess of $2 billion.
