Chatfield College Student Receives the Charlotte R. Schmidlapp Fund Scholarship

Beverly Hector, a student at Chatfield College in Over-the-Rhine, was recently recognized at the YWCA Annual Career Women of Achievement Luncheon, where she was named the 2018 recipient of the Charlotte R. Schmidlapp Fund Scholarship.

The Charlotte R. Schmidlapp Fund was created to ennoble, empower and uplift young girls and women. Jacob Godfrey Schmidlapp created the fund to memorialize his daughter, who was killed at the age of nineteen in an automobile accident while touring France. He wanted other women to have the same opportunities in life that he would have afforded Charlotte. In 1908, while women around the world were fighting to attain the most basic rights, Jacob Schmidlapp was working to ensure their futures. What started as a $250,000 fund has grown to almost $30 million in assets, and nearly 100 years later, the fund is still supporting the work of the YWCA and providing aid young women in pursuit of higher education.

In 2008, the Charlotte Schmidlapp Fund Scholarship was created to provide financial support to women who are participating in YWCA programs to complete their educations in order to secure employment and financial stability and achieve independence and self-sufficiency.

As a single mother, Beverly has benefited from three YWCA programs. At the age of 18, she was pregnant with her first child and began the Workforce Development Program at YWCA. She set a goal to prove everyone wrong—that teenage mothers could succeed. She began taking GED courses with the YWCA, and after two months, she received her GED.

With her son’s best interest at heart, she escaped from an abusive relationship with his father, and found comfort in one of the domestic violence shelters operated by the YWCA. At the shelter, she discovered not just physical protection, but encouragement to follow her dreams, especially since she lacked a support system due to her estrangement from her own family.

“We believe in her and she knows she has a ‘family’ of support for her journey,” said her shelter advocate, Lisa Strode.

With the help of the YWCA and the support of her son, she decided to fulfill a lifelong dream and go to college. She began her education at Chatfield College in the spring of 2017. After graduation, she plans to become a social worker.

Beverly has become an amazing role model for her five-year-old son. She wants to prove that all single mothers can achieve their hopes and dreams if they are determined to do so. As a survivor of domestic abuse, poverty, depression, and high anxiety, she continues to inspire those around her.

“I want my son to remember his mommy as always being in school, mommy still got her education when everything else failed, and mommy didn’t give up,” said Beverly.

Chatfield College is a private, faith-based, liberal arts college offering the Associate of Arts degree in Brown County and Cincinnati, and is an open enrollment college. The Brown County campus is located at 20918 State Route 251; St. Martin, OH 45118; the Cincinnati campus is located in historic Over-the- Rhine at 1544 Central Parkway; Cincinnati, OH 45202. For more information, visit the website, at www.chatfield.edu, call (513) 875-3344 or e-mail admissions@chatfield.edu.