Every year, Belmont students will learn and help others, all in the name of former Belmont student Lauren McCathren.
McCathren’s family was honored Monday with the Global Honors Program's third annual Honorable Life Award, for the work it has done in Lauren’s name.
Lauren McCathren, who died in 2005 when she was 21, was passionate about helping others. She founded a Christmas gift market at her church to raise money for charities across Nashville, and raised money for a library at the Dudley Head Start Center, which provides pre-K education at no cost to eligible Nashville families.
In the years following her death, McCathren’s family created the Lauren McCathren Translator Award which sponsored Belmont Spanish students to serve on medical mission trips to Ecuador to translate for doctors and teachers at Escuela Anne Stevens school in San Eduardo.
The translator award will now become the Lauren McCathren Award for Social Impact in honor of Lauren’s dedication to service.
Every fall, the scholarship will be awarded to help fund students' completion of their Honors Scholars Collaborative Project.
“We want to encourage you to be visionaries, to live a better story, and to strive to make a difference in this world, as Lauren did,” said Dr. Bonnie Smith Whitehouse, director of Belmont Global Honors, at the dinner.
Randall McCathren, Lauren’s father, said the award, in his daughter’s name, has special meaning.
“She was a special person,” he said “And we believe that every one of you, being here, being in this program, is also a special person. Special people can do amazing things in this world when they set their minds to it.”
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This article was written by Dallas Whitehead