Senator Florence Shapiro Endowment

This endowment was established in 2005 from excess money raised during Florence Shapiro’s “Governor for a Day” activities. Florence D. Shapiro is a first-generation American and the daughter of two Holocaust survivors. She was born in New York City and graduated from Hillcrest High School in Dallas and subsequently received her B.S. in secondary education at the University of Texas at Austin. She taught Richardson ISD. She was elected as a member of the Plano City Council from 1979 until 1990 and then elected Mayor of Plano until 1992. She was also a former member of the Texas Senate from 1993 to 2013. Her series of bills known as Ashley’s Laws, which severely punishes sexual predators, is a national benchmark in the fight against sex offenders. Senator Shapiro was awarded the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault’s “Champion for Social Change Award” and the Children’s Advocacy Centers of Texas’s “Legislator of the Year Award” in 2008.