Ernestine Player. Photo courtesy of Winthrop University.

Social worker Ernestine “Pete” Player, who was affectionately known as the matriarch of social work in South Carolina, left a $25,000 endowment to the Winthrop University School of Social Work, according to this article on HeraldOnline.com.

The endowment will be used to provide scholarships, graduate assistantships, and discretionary funds to benefit at least one student enrolled in the Rock Hill, S.C. university’s social work masters degree program, the article said.

Player, who died in March at age 79, was a music teacher, choir director and organist at a children’s home before going back to college in  Virginia to earn a master’s degree in social work in 1958.

When she returned to South Carolina she found there were no social work programs in colleges. Player helped establish a graduate school of social work at the University of South Carolina in Columbia.

Player also received a lifetime achievement award from the National Association of Social Workers.