Raymond Rosenberger – Minette Baum 2013 Awardee Nancy Schenkel

To be considered for this award, the nominee shall have performed diligent and faithful service for an Exempt Charitable Organization which is organized and operated to (I) alleviate human suffering or enhance the quality of life of persons afflicted with illness or injury, or (II) promote wellness through prevention of illness, disease or injury so that they are advancing the mission of the St. Joseph Community Health Foundation and the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ.

We are pleased to introduce our 2013 Minette Baum Awardee Nancy Schenkel. Nancy has provided tremendous service to the community, especially low income individuals needing healthcare in our community. Since 1999, Nancy has served as the CEO of Matthew 25 Health and Dental Clinic. During her watch, she has guided our community in alleviating much human suffering to help many afflicted with illness or injury. In fact, as a result of her effective leadership, Matthew 25 has grown to serving 6,500 unique patients annually. She has shepherded this agency’s growth, and so it is now a great community organization benefiting from:

• 430 active volunteers who contribute over 27,000 hours annually
• 25,000 patient visits annually for both medical and dental
• Typically 100 low income people daily visit the clinic

Among her greatest gifts to the community was in leading the organization through a year-long capital campaign in 2006, with a total of $2.9 million raised. When they moved into the building in January 2007, the size tripled from the original building, which was 6,800 square feet. This resulted in double the number of medical exam rooms and more efficient patient flow. The medication room quadrupled in size. There was also an addition for a private counseling area for patient counseling. The waiting room doubled in size to accommodate 50-100 individuals. More office space for expanding staff was added, as well as two multipurpose classrooms for meetings. The clinic also implemented an electronic records system in every exam room to ensure the most up-to-date information was available for patients. State-of-the-art dental operatories, along with digital x-ray equipment, was added. The staff grew to twenty full-time individuals and ten part-time. Since then, Nancy has encouraged the addition of many new services, such as the eye clinic, hearing clinic and many specialty clinics. Nancy has always been accessible to patients as well.

According to Ann Hathaway, who worked alongside Nancy for many years as Matthew 25’s Development Director, in her comments about Nancy being an exceptional candidate for this award, “I think the one thing that sounds out to me of course is related to the development office. She was willing to enter into an agreement with Vincent House in early 2001 to share a Development Director position. This was unheard of in non-profit circles and many thought it was not a good idea. As you know this was a successful endeavor because she and Ann Helmke were willing to “give it a try.” Nancy is probably the only non-profit executive I know that has never had administrative support and has always answered her own phone and scheduled her own meetings. In a nutshell, I would say “NANCY IS RESPONSIBLE FOR PROFESSIONALIZING MATTHEW 25.”

Nancy has inspired in all of us a sense of humor, kindness and goodwill that enables us to reach out as she does in serving the most indigent in the community. Foundation grantees, members of the Poor Handmaids and her fellow staff members are confident her family and friends all know this about Nancy and we are grateful to have her in our community and our lives. It is for this compassionate attitude of incredible service to make the world around her a little bit better for everyone that the St. Joseph Community Health Foundation Trustees have unanimously nominated her as our 2013 Raymond Rosenberger – Minette Baum Recipient.