|
|
Hollenbeck Family Memorial Scholarship Fund
Scholarship Criteria:
- Parishioner of Cornerstone United Methodist
The Hollenbeck Family Memorial Fund was created to benefit the congregation of Cornerstone United Methodist Church and provide two college scholarships.
Joyce Hollenbeck set the criteria for the endowment fund shortly before she died in September, 2007. The scholarships are to be targeted to students who exhibit financial need, have been past participants in the Cornerstone Alleluia Children’s Ministry, and have continued to participate in a church youth group as a member, teacher or volunteer.
Students will be eligible to receive the scholarship for multiple years based upon satisfactory performance and progress and continually meeting the scholarship criteria. A letter of recommendation from the applicant’s minister detailing his or her involvement in church activities should be submitted with the application and should reference the scholarship criteria set by Hollenbeck.
A life-long resident of Portsmouth, Hollenbeck was born on February 9, 1942, the daughter of the late Carl Hollenbeck and Katheryn Yelley Hollenbeck. She was a member of Cornerstone United Methodist Church where she directed the Alleluia program that originated at Franklin Methodist Church.
Hollenbeck retired early from her work at a local bank and supervised the Alleluia program for 22 years. Eight years before initiating that program, she taught a small group of girls called “Patchwork.”
“Joyce poured her life into the Alleluia Children’s Ministry,” said Cornerstone United Methodist Church Associate Minister Kym James. “Joyce never married and had children, but she knew the incredible joy of reaching children who would one day grow up and marry and eventually bring their children to Alleluia.”
Hollenbeck designed the program’s logo, planned and ordered curriculum materials, Rev. James recalled. “She loved ‘her kids’ and would call them, take their lessons to them, write them notes and check on them if they missed a meeting. Even long after their years in the program, she would send them a note of congratulations and a cross when they graduated from high school.”
“She loved to take a photograph of each child and make it into an ornament to be hung on the church Christmas tree,” said Rev. James. “She knew every child’s name, where he or she lived and the parents’ names. She mailed flyers illustrating the children’s work to members of the congregation who responded by investing their support in the Alleluia program.”
“She was a true shepherd for the Alleluia families,” continued Rev. James, evoking her memory through a passage that Joyce included on a printed program for an Alleluia presentation: “Children are the living messages we send to a time that we will not see.”
“Indeed, Joyce Hollenbeck has left a legacy of love behind her,” said Rev. James in Hollenbeck’s memorial service, remembering her “even bigger blessing of reaching kids that would one day come back and join the team in reaching others with her.”
“The staff who are working with the program now are people she poured her life into,” said Rev. James. Hollenbeck was also passionate about the Stephen A. Hunter Hope Fund and Operation Christmas Child, she concluded.
Scholarships associated with Hollenbeck Family Memorial Scholarship Fund
- 31. Hollenbeck Family Memorial Scholarship Fund
|