Being 8,000 miles away from Suffolk does not mean one cannot still make a difference here.

Brian and Tamara Jolley of Suffolk both work with the Bennett’s Creek Warriors football and cheerleading program and came up with a plan to award two participants with $500 scholarships.

Tamara Jolley found a way to make it happen during her deployment on the USS Bainbridge, which began on June 14 and will end in February 2014.

“They’re in an unknown location somewhere off the coast of Africa,” Brian Jolley said.

He explained how it came to pass. In addition to serving as public relations director for the Bennett’s Creek program, Brian Jolley is the scholastic director, and he said, “I was looking at something that I could do to benefit the organization and benefit the children.”

“Pop Warner offers scholarships to the children and the local area offers scholarships to the children, but there’s a selection process that goes on, and a lot of our kids don’t get selected,” he said.

The Jolleys started looking into ways they could raise money so the youths involved with Bennett’s Creek, ages 5 to 15, could start receiving money for college.

One idea was partnering with Tamara Jolley’s ship, which made the news back in 2009 for intervening and rescuing American cargo-ship captain Richard Phillips, who was being held hostage by pirates.

Tamara Jolley would gather donations from the crew members of the ship who wanted to help out the local youths selected.

“It worked out that her ship was receptive of it,” Brian Jolley said. He believed she went through the ship’s captain, and he said the captain “liked the idea of partnering up and supporting the community while they were away.”

There was just one small request the crew had. “What they wanted us to do was just send some care packages with candy and the comforts of home that they don’t have out there right now,” Brian Jolley said.

The money has been collected, though there is no way of getting it here until the Bainbridge returns.

Still, the selections were made and there was a ceremonial presentation on Saturday to the winners: seventh-grade football player George Dube’ and seventh-grade cheerleader Hannah Ramey.

Their academic accomplishments were impressive. Brian Jolley said to determine who to select, he took the 250 kids in the organization and calculated their grades.

Pop Warner Little Scholars, Inc. selects a group of All-American Scholars each year, and to be eligible, youths must receive average grades of 96 percent or higher.

“We actually have over 30 children who are within that range,” Brian Jolley said. “We just selected the top for our scholarship. Bennett’s Creek has more All-American candidates than all the other Pop Warner teams in Suffolk, Chesapeake and Virginia Beach combined.”

Dube’ has a perfect average and Ramey carries a 99.65 average.

Jolley said, “As a football organization, we may not necessarily field the best teams in the area, but our kids are academically superior, and we want to highlight that.”

The scholarships Dube’ and Ramey are receiving have been named the USS Bainbridge (DDG-96) Classroom Warriors Scholarship.

Former Warriors cheerleader Krystal Avery was also presented with a $500 scholarship on Saturday from Southeastern Virginia Pop Warner.