Feb 5, 2026
Partnership with Commonwealth Transfusion Foundation leads to four full-tuition scholarships, new opportunities for MLS students in Southwest Virginia
If you’d told Kaylah Sams a few months ago she’d be pursuing her bachelor’s degree in medical laboratory sciences in Abingdon on a full ride, she might not have believed you.
She’ll be the first to admit she applied late to the VCU Medical Laboratory Sciences (MLS) program – late enough that she expected to wait a year. The Richmond cohort was full, and her best chance was the alternate list. But there was another option: the MLS distance-learning program’s Abingdon campus. She had to act fast.
“I had literally a month to move,” she said. “I knew this was something that I really wanted to do, and I knew it was something I wanted to accomplish for myself. I was willing to take that leap of faith and move to a whole new part of Virginia.”
Her plan was to start the degree and find a way to pay for it later. That changed one afternoon when an unexpected email arrived.
“I was ecstatic. I was confused. I was really happy,” she said. “I didn’t apply for the scholarship, so I was taken aback. ‘Like me?’ I’ve never gotten a scholarship before, and I knew I needed a way to pay for college in this program, but I didn’t know how. When I saw it, it was like a miracle and a prayer that had been answered.”
The scholarship came from the Richmond-area based Commonwealth Transfusion Foundation (CTF), which extended beyond tuition and fees to pay for textbooks. “I feel like this was meant to happen,” she said. “I feel like I have purpose where I’m at right now.”
Sams is among four Abingdon juniors supported by CTF. These scholarships fund the distance site’s entire incoming cohort, removing the financial barrier that often keeps students from rural regions or those willing to relocate from entering the MLS field.
For Joshua W. Williams, Ph.D., coordinator of the MLS program at the Abingdon campus, the award represents both a new chapter and a continuation of an important relationship.
“This is the first time that CTF has offered this scholarship for our Abingdon students,” Williams said. “The CTF has been a huge supporter of our department for many years now.”
What’s more, Williams said, was the foundation’s flexibility that made the opportunity even more powerful. That’s allowing students to focus on their education and training.
“They just have to maintain good academic standing through their progression through the degree,” he said. “They allowed us as program leaders to determine who’s a great fit, who can benefit to go on and be successful in their career.”
Students in Abingdon take the same classes as their peers in Richmond, earn the same degree and interact with faculty in real time. Williams teaches all microbiology courses for the MLS program, including parasitology, bacteriology and advanced microbiology, and helps students feel connected even when they are far from the main campus.
That connection matters in Southwest Virginia, where many students can’t uproot families, jobs or support systems to relocate to Richmond. “One of the major benefits of this award in Southwest Virginia is that a major challenge is just simple student recruitment – even finding students who want to join, who we can train and then be put into the workforce here,” he said.
One of the most common questions potential students ask is how they will cover the program’s cost. With these four new scholarships in Abingdon, the answer this year was straightforward.
Covering tuition and fees also eases another pressure point. Many MLS students work part time to afford rent, food and long commutes to clinical sites.
Robert Carden, Ph.D., CTF’s president and CEO, sees the partnership as a way to meet a critical workforce need while expanding access to education.
“It brings the opportunity to the students,” Carden said. “We love VCU’s innovative approach to helping solve this problem of shortage of MLS professionals.”
CTF is a private, non-operating foundation that supports Virginia-based transfusion and health care initiatives, with a mission to improve health outcomes and ensure a safe, sustainable blood supply. Carden spent more than two decades leading Virginia Blood Services and understands how central MLS professionals are to patient care.
“I just can't overstate the importance of what it is that they do,” he said. “Our goal is trying to attract people to the medical laboratory science major, and ultimately the medical laboratory science field.”
Sams already sees that. And as someone who’s had leaders invest in her success, she knows support like this can strengthen the local pipeline and attract new talent to Southwest Virginia.
“Not everybody starts on the same playing field or the same stepping stool. This gives people a chance to gain the confidence to know their purpose, where they want to be and who they want to be,” Sams said.