Fuld Trust Helps Nursing Students Reach Their Goals

Helene Menchel ’04N worked in marketing for 12 years before she decided to change careers and become a nurse. Although she wanted to enter a more service-oriented profession, she was concerned that it would take too long to complete the program at the School of Nursing.

“[I thought] I would be in night school part time, trying to crawl into nursing over a five-year period,” Menchel says.

But Menchel, along with dozens of other students at the School of Nursing, was able to attend school full time with scholarship money funded through the Helene Fuld Health Trust. The School of Nursing received $2.5 million in 2006 from the Fuld Trust; in 2002, the school received $2.2 million—the two largest gifts from foundations in almost 25 years.

The grant will allow the school to increase enrollment in the one-year Accelerated Bachelor’s Program for Non-Nurses by about 50 percent over the next five years, helping to alleviate a national nursing shortage.

Menchel, who is now a registered nurse in Strong Memorial Hospital’s medical oncology unit, says, “Without Fuld, I would not have already served or been touched by more than 1,100 patients and their families. I am forever grateful.”