Scholarship Helps Student Jenny Nystrom Pursue Her Passion: Healing Fractured Families

For 15 years before becoming a student at William Mitchell—a predecessor school of Mitchell Hamline, Jenny Nystrom ‘12 had been working with separated parents to improve the lives of the children caught in the middle of broken families. That's the kind of childhood she had and she's made it her goal to make a difference in the lives of other children living in unstable families.

Jenny's passion to help families in need led her to law school, but she worried about paying off law school loans and providing for her own family on a public interest salary. While still a student, she decided that she would put her career goal aside for a while and seek a higher paying job to pay off her student loans.

Then she received the Justice Helen M. Meyer Scholarship, and her goal was within reach again. As members of Mitchell Hamline's Amicus Circle, Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Helen Meyer '83 and her husband William Bieber started the scholarship with a living endowment (a combination of an estate gift and annual contributions). The scholarship, Jenny says, gave her "the financial freedom to pursue the work that is important to me immediately."

Justice Meyer's scholarship is designated for students committed to public interest work. Since Jenny’s graduation, she has honored that commitment and continues pursuing her passion to help fractured families. "What a gift...to me, to my family and to the families I hope to serve," she says.

For information on how you can make this type of lasting impact or for details on "living endowments," please contact us.