In 2019, Pottawattamie County Special Deputy Anthony Kava, Investigator Jim Doty, and Deputy Ryan Avis created The Cari Farver Memorial Scholarship Fund at the Community Foundation for Western Iowa to honor Cari Farver.  Cari was murdered in 2012, and the case garnered national headlines with coverage from numerous networks, including: NBC, Investigation Discovery, ABC, Lifetime, and a documentary on Netflix. 

The Cari Farver Memorial Scholarship Fund was established at the Community Foundation for Western Iowa, formerly the Pottawattamie County Community Foundation, to honor Cari Farver -- a vibrant, talented and caring person from Macedonia, Iowa. Her friends and family remember Farver as a “courageous spirit” and “love of life” fondly, and the scholarship fund is a tribute to her passion for helping others.

Farver was a lifelong learner and well-versed in a dozen programming languages. She first attended Iowa Western Community College in 1995 to improve her typing skills, then returned to earn an associate degree in May 2009. She secured her dream job as a programmer analyst as she refreshed her knowledge with information technology courses at IWCC in spring 2012.

Sadly, Farver’s life ended too soon. She disappeared on Nov. 13, 2012, and, despite an elaborate and extended effort to cover up the crime, her killer was arrested in December 2016, convicted in August 2017 and sent to prison for the rest of her life.

“Establishing a scholarship fund in Cari’s memory is a perfect example of how a tragedy can be turned into an impactful gift for future generations,” Dostal said.

One of several goals for the Cari Farver Memorial Scholarship Fund is to reclaim the narrative surrounding her life and honor her kind and giving nature.

“Supporting this fund, and its goal of a permanent endowment, means ensuring Cari Farver, an innocent victim, is never forgotten,” said Anthony Kava, digital forensics and technology administrator at the Pottawattamie County Sheriff’s Office, who led efforts to establish the fund. “It means preserving Cari’s legacy of helping others. It’s part of the answer to how we, as a community, can strive to ensure that a victim is remembered, rather than the person who harmed them. “This fund can’t deliver justice, but it can provide a student with an interest in technology, like Cari, with something that goes beyond just financial assistance: an example of compassion and how precious life is,” Kava said.

Annually, the Cari Farver Scholarship is awarded to a student who is pursuing a career in computer and information technology at Iowa Western.