In 1995, Oseola McCarty was an 87-year-old washerwoman from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, who had spent most of her life doing laundry and saving the money she earned. She had never been able to pursue her own dream of going to college, but she wanted to help other young people get that opportunity.
Her decision to give $150,000 to a scholarship fund would eventually inspire one of the largest charitable pledges in American history.
Two years later, media mogul Ted Turner announced that he would donate $1 billion to support the United Nations. And, decades afterward, his daughter recalled that McCarty’s generosity had helped inspire him to make the extraordinary commitment.
McCarty’s story began long before her name became known around the world.
Born in Hattiesburg in 1908, she started working at just 8 years old, helping her mother, grandmother and aunt with laundry. She left school in the sixth grade to care for an ill aunt and never returned to the classroom. Although she had once dreamed of becoming a nurse, she spent the next 75 years washing and ironing clothes for other people.
Throughout her life, McCarty saved much of what she earned. When arthritis finally forced her to retire, she had accumulated a substantial amount of money through decades of hard work and careful spending.
In 1995, she designated $150,000 of her savings to establish scholarships at the University of Southern Mississippi. The gift was intended to help students who needed financial assistance pursue their education—an opportunity McCarty herself had missed.
News of her donation attracted national attention, and other contributions followed.
Her generosity also reached Turner, the CNN founder and billionaire media executive. In a 1997 interview with TIME, Turner identified McCarty as one of the people whose philanthropy inspired him.
That September, Turner pledged $1 billion over 10 years to support United Nations programs. The following year, he established the United Nations Foundation to help distribute the gift and attract additional support for the organization.
The connection between the two gifts was recalled again in November 2026, when Turner’s daughter, Laura Turner Seydel, spoke at a United Nations celebration honoring her late father. She said the Mississippi washerwoman’s $150,000 scholarship gift had inspired him to make his billion-dollar pledge.
McCarty’s legacy has continued at Southern Miss. In 2025, the university announced that the scholarship endowment she began had reached $1 million, supported by contributions from approximately 1,400 donors.
What began with one woman’s savings and a desire to help students has grown into a lasting scholarship program and helped inspire a billionaire to think on a global scale.
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