The Center for Educational Growth logoDannae Harris

CFEG Alumni PortfolioABWA Scholarship 2026

Meet Dannae Harris, CFEG's 2023 valedictorian and a Gannon University student preparing for a career in accounting, financial technology, and public service.

DannaeHarris.

Distinction
Valedictorian · Class of 2023
Now
Gannon University · 3rd year · GPA above 3.0
Direction
Accounting · FinTech · CPA pathway
Home
St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands
Explore her record Read the recommendation
Dannae Harris in her blue CFEG cap and gown, holding her diploma at the 2023 CFEG commencement

The route

St. ThomasErie, PASt. Thomas

She left to learn. She keeps coming back to teach.

2023Valedictorian, CFEG Class of 2023
3rd yearGannon University, GPA above 3.0
InternshipsProfessional experience with accounting firms
3 yearsReturning to support CFEG graduations since her own

Her story · A great phoenix rises from a small island

“Dannae is our phoenix and our star—a steady beam of what is possible. She rose beyond fear without outgrowing her roots, and every time she returns home, she lights a path forward for her family, her community, and the students coming behind her. She is not simply following opportunity. She is trailblazing a way to it for others.”

Sansara A. Cannon, Esq. · Executive Director, CFEG

She left home to find her path.
She returns to light the way.

Dannae left her family and her small-island community in St. Thomas to attend college roughly 1,870 miles away. Living independently at that distance—and managing the anxiety that came with it—asked for a kind of courage that does not announce itself. She stayed. She adapted. And in the process she found genuine passion for the accounting and financial career paths her education had made visible to her.

That direction did not arrive by accident. At CFEG she completed finance and business courses taught by working professionals, and she has carried that preparation into her college coursework and into internships with accounting firms. She is not drawn to accounting as an abstraction. She has deliberately sought the foundation, the exposure, and the applied experience the work requires.

What she learned to see for herself, she now helps younger students see for themselves.

Geography shaped what was visible to her, not what she was capable of. The Virgin Islands gave her the family, the school, and the community that prepared her—and home is the place she keeps returning to with everything she picks up along the way.

Leaving · learning · returning

Five stops on one route.

The distance between Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands and Erie, Pennsylvania is the shape of her education. The return trips are the shape of her character.

Map of the western Atlantic showing the route from Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands north-west to Erie, Pennsylvania — roughly 1,870 miles
Roughly 1,870 miles each way. Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas (18.34° N, 64.93° W) to Erie, Pennsylvania (42.13° N, 80.09° W) — a trip she makes in both directions.

  1. Foundation · 18.34° N, 64.93° W

    St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands

    Family, community, and a Cognia-accredited nonprofit school serving the Virgin Islands, where finance and business were taught by people who practice them.

  2. Achievement · May 2023

    Valedictorian, CFEG Class of 2023

    Not an isolated honor. The valedictory result reflected the study habits and intellectual discipline that still define her college record.

  3. Study · 42.13° N, 80.09° W

    Gannon University, Erie, Pennsylvania

    Third-year student with a GPA above 3.0, continuing business and finance coursework while gaining practical experience through internships with accounting firms.

  4. Return · 18.34° N, 64.93° W

    Home again, on purpose

    She spends limited free time flying home to the Virgin Islands to mentor younger students with CFEG leadership, support graduations, help recruit, volunteer, and join STEAM programming.

  5. Ahead · invited roles

    CPA pathway, FinTech, and the podium

    CFEG has invited her to give a future keynote graduation address and to present in its learning labs and technology-conference launch, focused on FinTech and EdTech.

Alliance of Black Women Accountants · criteria and evidence

The mission is already visible in her work.

ABWA's published criteria are leadership, communication, participation in the ABWA community, mission alignment, and financial need. Below is only what CFEG has observed directly and can verify.

01 · LEADERSHIP

Her leadership did not end when she graduated.

Finishing at the top of her class showed what Dannae could achieve. Returning year after year to help other students move forward shows who she is. While maintaining a GPA above 3.0 during her third year at Gannon University, she continues to lead through service to the school and community that helped her begin.

  • Valedictorian, CFEG Class of 2023
  • Mentors younger students alongside CFEG leadership
  • Helps recruit students and expand access to CFEG
  • Returns to support graduation ceremonies and celebrate other students
  • Participates in CFEG's STEAM programs and community work

02 · COMMUNICATION

She turns what she learns into a light others can follow.

Dannae gives younger students more than encouragement. She makes unfamiliar college, accounting, and financial career paths feel real and reachable. Whether she is speaking personally, sharing her developing financial-analysis knowledge, or representing CFEG on camera, she communicates with the credibility of someone who has walked the path herself.

  • Featured CFEG student and alumni ambassador in video
  • Shares college, accounting, and financial-analysis experience with current students
  • Helps students see professional opportunities beyond what geography has made visible
  • Invited to return as a future keynote graduation speaker
  • Preparing to represent CFEG through FinTech and EdTech presentations

03 · ABWA COMMUNITY

She would enter ABWA ready to strengthen the circle.

Dannae already practices the kind of community ABWA exists to build: women advancing, returning, mentoring, and creating room for others. For three years, she has continued to show up for other students' milestones—not because recognition required it, but because she understands that one woman's progress should help open the way for another.

She would not enter ABWA only to receive the strength of its professional network. She would enter prepared to add her knowledge, her Virgin Islands perspective, and her steady commitment to lifting the women coming behind her.

04 · MISSION ALIGNMENT

Retention, empowerment, support, mentoring

She understands mentorship because she practices it, and access because geography once limited which professions were visible to her at all.

  • Makes accounting and finance visible to island students
  • Returns as a reachable example, not a distant success story
  • Builds toward the CPA credential and FinTech practice

05 · FINANCIAL NEED AND IMPACT

An investment in Dannae will travel home with her.

Dannae's confidential application materials will establish the numbers. Her life already shows what the investment will make possible.

For a student from St. Thomas, pursuing college far from home requires more than paying tuition. It means building a life away from family, reaching professional opportunities not readily available on a small island, and finding the resources to keep moving forward without losing connection to home.

An ABWA scholarship would help protect the progress Dannae has worked so hard to make as she continues her accounting, FinTech, and CPA pathway. It would also strengthen the work she is already carrying back to her community through mentorship, student recruitment, STEAM education, and service.

The return on this investment is already visible. Supporting Dannae means supporting a young woman who will not allow opportunity to end with her. What ABWA places in her hands will continue into the hands, hopes, and futures of the students she returns home to lift.

Eligibility floor for the award is a 2.75 GPA. Her college GPA is above 3.0.

Alumni service · 2023 to today

Graduation was a beginning.

Six ways she has stayed present at the school she graduated from—consistently, across three years, not once for a photograph.

CFEG graduates in blue caps and gowns processing into a commencement ceremony, led by a member of the school's leadership
A CFEG commencement procession. Dannae has returned to support these ceremonies in each of the three years since her own.

MENTORSHIP

Mentors younger students with CFEG leadership

She works with the school's leadership rather than around it, answering the questions students are too unsure to ask an adult.

GRADUATIONS

Returns for commencement, year after year

Three years of graduations since her own, flying home on limited free time to stand with the class crossing the stage.

RECRUITMENT

Helps bring new students to CFEG

Families considering the school hear from a graduate who has already used it as a launch point.

STEAM · MATH AND ACCOUNTING

Builds STEAM programming around math and accounting

Her math and accounting skills feed directly into CFEG's STEAM program building, which now integrates financial technology into student curriculums—so the mathematics students practice connects to the accounting and finance work it leads to.

KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER

Shares financial-analysis knowledge and internship experience

What she learns in coursework and at accounting firms comes back to students who may not otherwise see those careers as available to them.

REPRESENTATION

Serves as a student and alumni ambassador

One of the featured voices representing CFEG in the video on the school's website, and a volunteer in the wider community.

Planned and invited roles

What CFEG has asked her to do next.

She is coming back for CFEG's accounting and finance applied learning sessions, and each role below is an invitation the school has extended for upcoming programming.

FUTURE

Keynote graduation address

Invited to speak to a future graduating class as an alumna who returned.

FUTURE

Accounting and finance applied learning sessions

Returning to CFEG's Learning Labs to run applied sessions in accounting, finance, and the mathematics behind both.

FUTURE

Guest appearances in class

Joining classes for CFEG students interested in college and careers in finance, answering the questions they would not ask a stranger.

FUTURE

FinTech and EdTech work

Contributing to finance, math, and accounting curriculum development and career development for CFEG students, using the technology reshaping both fields.

FUTURE

Technology-conference launch

Invited to represent CFEG alumni and Virgin Islands students at the school's first technology conference.

Photo story · evidence, not decoration

At the milestone—and long after it.

I · May 2023 · her own commencement

Dannae Harris looking toward the camera while waiting in the CFEG graduation procession, with classmates in blue gowns behind her
Waiting to be called. The valedictorian of a graduating class that included students across the Virgin Islands and abroad.
Dannae Harris holding her CFEG diploma of graduation in cap, gown, and CFEG sash
The diploma. Proof of a record built on finance and business coursework taught by working professionals.
Dannae Harris in cap and gown at the 2023 CFEG commencement, looking off to the side as the ceremony begins
A quiet force. Steady rather than showy—the quality her recommender names first.

II · After 2023 · returning as an alumna

Dannae Harris standing between two members of the CFEG community at a school event after her graduation, with maps of the Caribbean on the wall behind them
Back at the school. With CFEG leadership and community after returning home to the Virgin Islands as an alumna.
Dannae Harris with a later CFEG graduate, family members, and school community celebrating a certificate of achievement
Somebody else's turn. Celebrating a later CFEG graduate and his family—the return trips are the whole point.
CFEG Class of 2023 graduates seated in blue caps and gowns holding programs during their commencement ceremony
The class she came from. A small cohort at a nonprofit Virgin Islands school—still the community she answers to.

Photographs supplied by The Center for Educational Growth, Inc. Individuals other than Dannae Harris are not identified by name.

Dannae is a CFEG Ambassador featured on CFEG. The same film runs on the school's own site — usvicfeg.com.

Ambassador · in CFEG's own words

She is one of the faces the school leads with.

Dannae is a featured student and alumni representative in the video CFEG publishes on its own website—chosen to speak for the school to prospective families and to the wider Virgin Islands community.

  • Representation. A Virgin Islander visibly pursuing accounting, FinTech, and the CPA credential.

  • Credibility. The school's recruitment message carries her name because her record supports it.

  • Continuity. College success that stayed connected to family, school, and home island.

CFEG · with 1878, LLC legal counsel

Recommended without reservation.

The letter ties Dannae's academic record, professional direction, perseverance, leadership, and alumni service to ABWA's stated mission and each of its five selection criteria. It is submitted by CFEG's Executive Director, joined by the school's Board of Directors, and signed electronically.

“She does not merely satisfy the qualities ABWA seeks. She already demonstrates what it means to use education, mentorship, and professional growth to expand opportunity for others.”
Read the full letter Download PDF

Recommender

Sansara A. Cannon, Esq.

Executive Director · Legal Counsel · Chief Technology Officer, The Center for Educational Growth, Inc. Partner, 1878, LLC. Has known Dannae for five years.

  • Senior investigative attorney, U.S. International Development Finance Corporation
  • Senior counsel to the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, a committee of CIGIE
  • Juris Doctor, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University
  • Works in legal technology, AI, and data governance; master of ceremonies at CFEG commencements

Dannae's recommender spends her professional life on financial oversight and accountability—the discipline the profession Dannae is entering depends on.

Joined by the CFEG board

Sansara A. CannonSansara A. Cannon, Esq.Executive Director · Legal Counsel · CTO
Sandra CannonSandra CannonBoard Chair and Founder
Christopher GordonChristopher GordonTreasurer
Paula GordonPaula GordonVice Chair

Executed electronically on September 12, 2026. Each name is applied as an electronic signature by the named officer or director. More about CFEG's story.

About the school

Where potential is abundant and opportunity is not.

The Center for Educational Growth, Inc. is a Cognia-accredited, internationally recognized nonprofit school headquartered in Frederiksted, St. Croix—the first local virtual school of its kind in the U.S. Virgin Islands. It serves students across the Virgin Islands, the Caribbean, the United States, and internationally.

CFEG combines individualized education with career, technology, STEAM, humanities, culture, and workforce programming, under one instruction to every student: Direct Your Learning.