JAY – Five graduates from Jay and Livermore Falls high schools all share the common goal of wanting to study medicine.

Four of them plan to attend pharmacy school and the fifth is going to nursing school.

All of them were recipients of a scholarship from the Tri-Town Medical Foundation.

The foundation was created in 2000 by James Johnsen and Gary Knight, now president of it. It was funded with proceeds from the sale of Community Emergency Services Inc., the then-local nonprofit ambulance company serving Franklin Memorial Hospital in Farmington, Knight said Friday.

The foundation was started with the investment of $260,000 in sale proceeds. The income earned from that investment will provide scholarship funds in perpetuity to qualifying graduating seniors and continuing college students studying in the field of medicine or to public safety organizations in the three communities. It is overseen by a five-member volunteer board representing Jay, Livermore and Livermore Falls.

CES ambulance service operated in those towns for more than 20 years beginning in 1979, with trained volunteers providing the services.

The awards combined this year were $5,250. So far $70,200 in scholarships has been awarded over the years, Knight said. The amount awarded each year depends on the interest earned calculated into a formula the board uses.

Ross Chicoine, 18, and Erika Newman, 17, both of Livermore, and Katie Hall, 17, and Cassandra “Casey” Frechette, 18, both of Jay, will study pharmacy at the University of New England in Biddeford. Bryndi Richards, 18, of Jay is heading to Husson College to study nursing.

They all targeted helping others and working in the medical field.

“I was going to be a state trooper, but since I worked at Hannaford Pharmacy, a former pharmacist there, Steve Maki, got me very interested in pharmacy,” Chicoine said. “I like the responsibility, and pharmacists have a lot of respect. I want people to respect me. I like the feeling of having people have their trust in me.”

Hall has suffered from migraines since she was younger and got interested in pharmacy.

Maki also suggested she job shadow him. She did and liked it.

“It’s always different. It’s fun. It’s interesting,” Hall said. “I love helping people – that’s the best part.”

Newman also likes helping people and is interested in pharmacy.

“After I job shadowed Steve Maki at Hannaford in Jay, I wanted to help people. I wanted to do something in the medicine field,” Newman said. “I wanted to do it for a long time.”

Richards loves children and is leaning toward becoming a pediatrics nurse.

“I’ve actually always been really interested in nursing. At first when I was young it seemed like a dream,” Richards said, and now is getting closer to realizing it.

Frechette’s older sister is the one who actually got her interested in pharmacy. Her sister, Melissa Frechette, is a pharmacist and also was a recipient of foundation scholarships.

Her sister would talk to her about what she was learning and that peaked her interest, Casey said.

“I realized I had a lot of interest, and I’ve always liked chemistry, biology and science,” she said. “We both wanted to be professional. We also both wanted to make good money and to be able to support ourselves. That’s what our parents wanted us to be able to do.”