Under the direction of University Ministries, the program is designed to provide funds for student-designed projects of a compassionate nature. The program seeks to encourage students to experience first-hand the joy of compassionate giving, hopefully influencing them to continue lives of compassionate giving throughout their adult lives.
Cathy’s Cup is named to honor the life of the late Cathy Meyer (see accompanying photo), who served for a number of years as assistant human resources director for the university. Cathy died in September 2002 following a lengthy battle with breast cancer.
One of the two recipients, Emily Nothnagel, a 20-year-old sophomore from Oak Brook, Illinois, was awarded funding for a project designed to help integrate families who are part of 400 Somali Bantu refugees being resettled in the Chicago area over a two-year period. Working with the United Nations, the United States is expecting about 2,000 resettled refugees during the next four years.
In her proposal, Nothnagel suggests that North Park students be given the opportunity to become friends of a refugee family, to help make those families feel more “at home.”
A January “Meet Your Family Dinner” will provide an opportunity for refugee families and North Park students to socialize, listen to music, and partake in a meal involving a variety of dishes prepared with the help of refugee women and youth who have been here for a longer period of time. Some of the project funds will be divided among the students who will account for how the funds are spent. “They could use it for bus tickets to teach a refugee the bus system, to buy a box of pencils at the dollar store, to put towards going to a museum or bowling alley, or perhaps provide a ‘Welcome to America’ fruit basket,” Nothnagel suggests. “The gift will come from that student’s heart for his/her new ‘family.’ ”
Nothnagel, whose home church is Faith Fellowship in Oak Brook, is pursuing a nonprofit management degree at North Park University. To read more detail of her project plan, please see Somali Bantu Refugees.
Margaret L. Sebastian, a third-year graduate student, is the other recipient of a Cathy’s Cup award. A part-time student in a dual-degree program (she works full-time), the 24-year-old Sebastian proposes a project to reach out to a specific individual/family in need.
“I work at an after-school program with a group of 12 teenage girls, and one family in particular needs some help,” she writes in her proposal. The family has experienced many hardships – the father committed suicide, leaving a mother who never graduated from high school to raise the children. Unable to hold a job that can support her family, she has survived on public welfare for 17 years.
Sebastian wants to work with the mother to earn a General Education Diploma (GED) and complete job training. She proposes purchasing a CTA bus pass so the mother can attend classes, paying the registration and book fees for both the GED and job training classes, and purchasing clothes for job interviews.
Sebastian’s home church is Living Faith Community Church in Chicago. She is pursuing a Master of Arts in Christian Ministry degree as well as a Master of Management in Non-Profit Administration (Youth Ministry Concentration). To learn more about her proposal, please see Family in Need.
“At her memorial service in Chicago, Cathy’s life was characterized as one of compassion and humility,” notes her husband, Don, who established the Cathy’s Cup program and announced it during a September chapel service on campus. He serves as executive minister of Covenant Communications for the Evangelical Covenant Church.
“I learned even more about her compassionate activities following her death,” he recalls, noting the many students and colleagues who shared stories of the ways in which she quietly reached out to them in times of need, providing money or a written note of encouragement.
“In thinking about her life, the question kept coming back – what made her a person of compassion?” Meyer says. “As a family, we thought it would be meaningful to develop something that would encourage younger people to develop lifetime patterns of compassionate living and giving. Knowing Cathy’s love for the students, Cathy’s Cup seemed like a logical choice.”
“We are very excited about the launch of Cathy’s Cup,” says Richard Johnson, director of University Ministries. “We received over a dozen applications from a variety of students – each of them with great ideas.
“University Ministries has on-going service programs for students including Urban Outreach and Global Partnerships, but Cathy’s Cup provides the opportunity and the resources for students to do something creative on their own,” Johnson notes. “Recipients have encountered someone in need, and now they have the means to make a tangible difference in their future. What a great way to live into North Park’s mission to prepare students for lives of significance and service.”
Cathy’s Cup was initially funded with more than $4,000 in memorials received during two services – one at North Park Covenant Church in Chicago, and one at the couple’s home church, Zion Covenant, in Jamestown, New York. The funds, which are administered by Covenant Trust Company, have been increased to $5,000, with five percent of the fund’s value to be made available each year to sponsor student projects.
“Obviously, our desire is to see more projects funded and more student lives influenced,” notes Meyer, who is seeking to attract other donors to help build the endowment fund. He also is working on an extension of the concept that would make Cathy’s Cup programs available to local churches, targeting young people in grades six through eight. “The earlier we can engage children in experiencing the joy of giving of themselves, the more likely it will be that they will be influenced in later adult years.”
Individuals desiring to help build the fund further may do so by sending contributions to the Evangelical Covenant Church, earmarked for the Cathy Meyer Memorial Fund, at 5101 N. Francisco Avenue, Chicago, IL, 60625. The denomination will acknowledge the gifts for income tax purposes and forward the contributions to Covenant Trust Company.
