This Nurse is Helping Nursing Students in Need - Ep. 53
After having her first child, then helping her husband recover from a major accident, Mary Cate found herself in a tough financial position when the financial aid office told her she no longer qualified for aid. What she did next contributed to one of her biggest money mistakes. Instead of letting this defeat her, she turned things around so that she could help other NP students through similar financial challenges.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Naseema McElroy (00:00): All right. Nurses on fire are super honored to have Mary Cate Leonard with me from EmbraceNursing.com. She has an incredible story to share with us, and I'm sure that you will learn a lot from this, and you might have a similar experience of your own. So before I give away too much of your story, I'm going to go ahead and have you give a little bit about your background and then share like what happened in nursing school? Yes. Okay. So I am a registered nurse. I graduated my bachelor's in 2013 and I quickly returned back to grad school. I waited just about 10 months before I applied my thought behind that was I'm already broken, starving, so let's just kindness, lug it out. And I didn't really know what I wanted to do with that. And honestly, I didn't think I was going to get it.
Mary Cate Leonard (01:01): So I applied with no expectations and in the October, and I was accepted into Gonzaga university's post-bacc DNP FNP program to start January. So, so in January of 15, so I said, I guess I'm going to go. I mean, I don't have anything to lose by gaining more education. Like I will be able to use this. And again, like if I do it while I'm young, I will be able to use my degree longer and I won't be in debt. Well, was my thought, as long as me going back in my thirties or forties for my advanced degree. So I, I don't even at first, our program is full time, which was raw. They advised us to not work while going through our program, just because it's pretty rigorous, obviously that wasn't an option for any of us, honestly. And so I kind of talked it out.
Mary Cate Leonard (02:06): I worked full time and I had planned it right. Pinched every single little penny and had it calculated down pretty quickly because I didn't want to be in debt and significant debt. I was fortunate enough to get out of my bachelor's program with pretty minimal student loans. And I feel pretty blessed by that. So it was really, I just was very regimented and disciplined with our finances to make it work. And in 2018, my husband and I had our first daughter and, you know, we planned for her. Everything was perfect. She actually ended up coming a little bit early, which of course, for someone who's type a totally, um, altered our finances just a little bit. But unfortunately my husband was in a pretty bad wakeboarding accident, three months after having her. And that was hard. I don't have any other way to describe it other than just difficult.
Mary Cate Leonard (03:13): And we, Oh gosh, gosh, we were just trying to survive. It became survival mode. He unfortunately had such a severe injury. Like he was, he had multiple leg fractures and foot injury and he couldn't hold the baby. So I'd have to do all of her care because he was in crutches and then we learn to walk and that was hard. And those medical bills started to pile on pretty quickly. And it just became pretty apparent that we were going to drown in them. Despite having decent insurance, we thought, and quickly enough, we figured like we can kind of make this work. I'm starting clinicals though. We're going to have to really tighten it up. So we got rid of all the extra luxuries, you know, like no cable, no anything, no more coffee, no date night, but we could then at least stay in her home, raise our daughter.
Mary Cate Leonard (04:18): Everything was going to be fine, not a big deal. Unfortunately, that came at the cost of delaying my graduation. So when my husband ended up with his injury, we have immersions on campus. We have a hybrid program where we're required to show up and you can go through some testing and to prove we're keeping up to their standards. And because of his injury, I just had lost track of time. I had no clue what day it was one day I got a phone call and it was one of my faculty members asking where I was, I was supposed to be on campus. And instead I was in a surgeon's office with my husband, trying to make sure we were getting him taken care of. And unfortunately I was removed from that course. They understood what, you know, that what happened. And they were very compassionate, but it delayed graduation by a whole term.
Mary Cate Leonard (05:18): And unfortunately there just really wasn't anything I could do about it. So I talked it up, I knew that was my fault. I should have been a little bit better. And then we, we made it work. Surprisingly, we made it work and I didn't go back to work because I'd started clinicals on top of that. And we were piecing it together. Okay. I'm pretty proud of us. And then come this year. So I'm in my last year, fall of 19, before we started, I was notified that I wasn't going to be getting all the financial aid that I needed for the term, because I made too much money in 2017, which it didn't account. Right? Like when I called them, you know, to work this out and they were like, well, in 2017, you made us, you know, this much amount of money. And it's like, I'm working full time and I didn't have a baby. And I didn't have a husband who was on the mend and there was nothing they could do. I could apply for a direct plus loan. So I tried to do that, but temporarily to be able to start my program, I had to pay for the tuition. So I, I panicked didn't really have any other options. And I put it on my credit card.
Mary Cate Leonard (06:33): One year out, I'm less than a year out. Let's just do this. I can make it happen. Unfortunately, I go to a private school. So whole, like I felt the financial strain of that, but not having any debt. I thought we were going to be able to piece that together. Well, unfortunately that was not the case. I ended up picking up shifts, working just to manage the monthly credit card payment, you know, that I had to, Oh gosh, when you can't be delinquent on your payments. And so it, the stress of all that and still going to clinicals, you know, 40 hours a week, it became very stressful. So I called my advisors and I was desperate. I was crying and I was asking for opportunities and scholarships and they were sweet. They were very compassionate. And one of my faculty members shared with me a very similar story that she experienced in our same program.
Mary Cate Leonard (07:30): But 20 years ago, she essentially said like, you're just going to have to make this work. Um, which was hard. So I didn't want that to be my option. I didn't want to drown. I didn't want to feel like we were going to lose our home or not be able to make our payments or grow my credit, all the different things. And so I started scouring online for other opportunities, for scholarships or grants or anything and anything I could get my hands on. And it became very apparent that there weren't opportunities for nurse practitioner, students, especially, especially in times of financial hardship, unlike traditional scholarships or annually or biannually. So it's not like I could reach out to somebody and say, Hey, can you select me as your recipient? Oh, and can I get that now? Not, you know, in January or false start. So my, my husband and I, we sat down and we really tried to talk it out and it just made most sense to sell our home, to be able to pay for tuition.
Mary Cate Leonard (08:32): So, and that was our first home and that was going to be our forever home. Um, but you know, family is family and we could live in a box like as long as we're together. And we're, that's all I could really care about. So I called my faculty members and advisors and they said, this is what I'm about to do. There's gotta be something else. And they're like, there's, there's not, there's nothing else. And they were super apologetic. And so I called them on a Friday, talk that out on Monday, I called a realtor and got our house on the market. And we turned that around really quick, so quickly that it sold. Luckily we were blessed in 24 hours after being on the market, but that was like a week, 10 days before social distancing went into effect here in Washington. So we couldn't find anywhere to live.
Mary Cate Leonard (09:26): That's the other thing. So not only did we just sell our home, we have nowhere to go. So that was really hard. That was tough. But we took the proceeds that we made off her home to pay off my credit card and to pay for tuition for this semester kinda where you were kind of stuck. And so I decided I needed to do something about this because then my program suspended clinicals and delayed graduation again. And so I figured I had to do something now I had a little bit of extra spare time on my hands and I developed Embrace. I figured I'm not the only one who's in this boat. I know I'm not, and nobody's talking about this and there's no resources, so I can do something and I'm motivated enough to do something. And I took a little bit of seed money from our home and built, Embrace and launched it last week.
Mary Cate Leonard (10:24): So two weeks. Yeah. And you know, it's had such a great response thus far. And I guess I can tell you a little bit about Embrace and our mission and.
Naseema McElroy (10:35): yeah, let's talk about that, but there's still like, there's like so much you shared, and I just want to unpack a couple of things because like the whole time I'm like, Oh my God, heart-wrenching number one. It's kind of always hard to anticipate emergencies, but it's crazy that you felt like you had all the good insurance yet and still your husband was in this accident and you ended up basically just like scrimping by, from being in a good position for being a good steward from being a good steward of your money, to just like barely scrimping by just to pay medical bills. And that is the situation in this country. The cost of our healthcare is so high and it's ironic because we're in healthcare and we see it, but it's like, we're not, it's frustrating to know that you can lose it all just from one bad accident.
Naseema McElroy (11:26): And so, yeah, I commend you for doing what you need to do to get through that. I'm still like confused why they were looking back at 2017. Like how is that even? Okay. Number one, I don't understand how they do that to determine your 2019 eligibility. So that doesn't make sense to me and it, and it speaks to a lot of the just kind of antiquated things in our financial aid. And so I think it makes you heavily dependent on student loans, even if you don't want to be. There's no real system about being socially responsible for being in school. And I think that is more, you know, like a structural thing that needs to change as far as policies. Cause basically schools have a lot of free range on how much they can charge and get away with. And that's why the student loan debt crisis is so high.
Naseema McElroy (12:16): But I mean, that can be a whole nother podcast. That's super, it's just unfortunate that, you know, just to go to school, we feel like we have those, we have to make those choices like, Oh my God, like you put this on your credit card. And I know because I can tell that you're very thorough and diligent about your money. Like that was like the only choice that you had. But I mean, like people will say, well, why didn't you just like take off of school instead of choosing to do that? Like, why did you make that choice? Let's just go there.
Mary Cate Leonard (12:51): So I made that choice because I was just that close. So our program is a five year, just over five year program. And I was, I'm just almost done. I'm almost done. And I was a little scared about taking time off, just not being able to return.
Mary Cate Leonard (13:09): And if I had that, you know, the six month grace period, I just couldn't plan that accordingly to work for our family. Um, and I would have had to start making payments on, you know, on the loans that I I've accrued. So it was kind of like both situations were horrible. And the other thing that was really important for me is I wanted as much schooling, uninterrupted schooling, so I can go take my boards. I didn't want to lose any of the information, what I've retained. You know, I wanted that to be in the forefront of my mind because that is the most important part at the end of this is just, you know, getting through your boards. And we, man, we tried, we figured I could do nights. Like I can do nights, weekends. There had to be something else. And I picked up as many shifts as I could.
Mary Cate Leonard (13:57): And, um, it just wasn't, it wasn't enough.
Naseema McElroy (14:02): I get it. Like, I know, I know that feeling and it's just like, you have this plan also in like you've already been derailed in so many other directions. Like the total derailment just seems like you have to put a hard stop and it seemed like you were also just using your credit card as a bridge, thinking that, okay, in the meantime, I can apply for these things. But the thing is, is that, so your financial aid office was looking at your 2017 income, but when you go to apply for a loan or anything like that, they're going to look at your current income. And if you don't have anything, you're not going to qualify. So that's what I'm saying. Like the system is so broken and it's so unfortunate that you were, that you had to sell your house, but fortunate that you did it in a time where you actually could sell your house.
Naseema McElroy (14:47): So dang, that really, really sucks. Like, so where did you guys end up going after you sold your house?
Mary Cate Leonard (14:55): That's a great question. And admittedly, we are living with my parents, you know, and we're so lucky they have like a little guest suite, so we kind of have our own space and we're so blessed in so many ways that they were like, you need to come here, just come here, sit down, get through school. And we can piece that together. And honestly I needed that. I didn't know how much I needed that extra support, especially, you know, now my daughters too, between my, my husband and I, you know, and he's working, he's going to grad school as well, just having the extra hands and the extra support has been just so helpful in so many ways. And at first I was a little hesitant.
Mary Cate Leonard (15:41): It was, Oh my gosh, I cannot believe we're about to move with my parents, but you want to know something that I am, we were desperate and this will actually give us the opportunity to not just get our head above water a little bit. You know? So, and during a pandemic too, I'm like,
Naseema McElroy (16:01): you know what, though? It worked out, it worked out. And I think it's totally a privilege too. And you know, a great opportunity to be able to even have parents to stay with. So I just got to look at it like that. Like, everything happens for a reason. And like you say, you didn't even know how much you needed that support. And so, you know, during these times, I mean, I've had to do that. I've had to move back in with my grandfather and my dad at certain times. And it's been a total lifesaver, but I know so many people that aren't fortunate enough to have that family.
Naseema McElroy (16:31): So, you know, I really feel like, you know, I am very privileged in that regard. And so I don't take that for granted, even though it might look like a setback, it's really a step up, it's a step forward and it's helping you get, get you back on your feet. So, you know, kudos, lucky you. Yeah,
Mary Cate Leonard (16:53): totally is a blessing. And you know, it helped too. So my mother a couple of years ago helped launch a different nonprofit. And so, you know, having this downtime and then living with her to be able to collaborate with her on how to approach us and you know, the wording to get, you know, our tax exemption status, like I've never done anything like this before I've only been in healthcare. And so we will sit with her next to her and be able to just, you know, talk through everything.
Naseema McElroy (17:25): It really did work out. I can't complain by any means. No, that's awesome to have that support, but let's dive in. That's a perfect segue to talk about Embrace Nursing. So talk about it, what the mission is and what you hope to do with it.
Mary Cate Leonard (17:40): Yeah, let's do it. So our mission is to provide scholarships and financial support to nurse practitioners, students who are experiencing financial hardships and our vision. I guess that's the best way to put this. Our vision is a future where nurse practitioners, students have the support carrying the financial responsibilities of higher education. It can a, we don't want you doing this alone. You don't have to do this alone. So my thought is, gosh, Embrace the still growing. So it's like definitely in its infancy and it's constantly evolving, but we, and as you I'm sure have experienced with, you know, communicating with so many other nurses, we need a scholarship program or, you know, nonprofit organization who can help during times when you need it. Not like waiting for it. And so our approach is to definitely be here whenever you need it. Now I know I had to sell my house.
Mary Cate Leonard (18:46): We want to pay for tuition. So the seed money for this has been really minimal, but we've had donations start to flood and a little bit. And then our first week we had, um, just over $1,500 come in, which was huge. And we quickly turned that around and offered it to our first recipient. And she cried like it. And you want to know something, we offered to buy her books. Like that's all we thought to do and to hear how grateful she was and how then she said, I want, you know, like I cannot contribute to Embrace right now, but I will. I promise when I am done, I will give you as many donations as you need. You know, she was like, this is obviously something that we as nurses and future nurse practitioners need. This is a service that will be highly utilized.
Mary Cate Leonard (19:41): And so, like I said, because we're so small, we are going to start with like purchasing books and paying for apps, subscriptions, you know, like to UpToDate or Epocrates paying for your lab. These, cause I think one of the hardest parts about graduate school is you pay tuition. And then all of a sudden they're like, Hey, we need you to buy all these other things. And you can think you had it, figure it out to a T. And then all of a sudden you're dropping a couple hundred dollars for like an app who has the extra cash for that. You know, our hope is we could do a lot more. Um, but in order to, I dunno, we were just trying to make sure that we were servicing our students appropriately. That made the most sense right off the bat. And additionally, we're going to try to reach out to companies like Chegg and, um, gosh, UpToDate or Epocrates if they would be willing to donate like gift cards or books or excuse me, you know, free subscriptions.
Mary Cate Leonard (20:44): And maybe that would help us, you know, supplement the contributions because the fundraising part is hard, especially when you're still a full time student and you're working and trying to make that, you know, get the message out there. So that's how we figured who approached us. In addition, we have worked very hard for these donations and I, the board and I didn't think it really made sense to just cut checks to students. I, this embraces and embraces my baby. I love it. I put so much into it myself. So many other people have too. And I just wanted to do right by the people who were donating their not only their money, but you know, their time by making sure that the little bit of money that we are giving out is going to the right things. Not just like, Oh, Hey, a couple extra, you know, a hundred bucks a year.
Mary Cate Leonard (21:35): Maybe I'll go buy shoes or, Oh, they like that. That could go to somebody else. Yeah. Yeah. This is the great thing that you're doing and you have established it as a nonprofit. So it's a five Oh six three. Yeah. So yeah. So five Oh one C three, well we're pen. Yeah. So we're pending. Right. But I mean, but once you get that, I mean, like, but even at a micro level, you can still donate and make a huge difference in the nursing students life. I mean, yeah. Those lab bees, those API's just like a co like imagine like just, if you were to give a couple dollars in that, and that was crowdsource with a whole bunch of people that can give it a couple of dollars, like it will make a difference in somebody's nursing career and it'll give them a leg up in the future because the less work we have to take on in debt.
Mary Cate Leonard (22:26): And it's a shame that we feel like, you know, like student loan debt is pretty horrible in itself, but at least it's at a low enough interest rate that it's manageable, but credit card debt, which people are sometimes forced to take on is not, you know, especially if they're encouraging that you not to work and you don't really have an income, it's challenging to pay that back. And so I love what you're doing. So let the nurses on fire community know how they can donate, because I'm sure there are plenty of people out there that would like to donate, or if there's anybody interested, how do you select recipients of your awards? Awesome. Okay. So in regards to recipients, so we do have a criteria that we are asking our students to meet. We have a GPA requirement. We do want you to have at least one year of your program underneath your belt, just to make sure, you know, like they're invested in it.
Mary Cate Leonard (23:23): Even the first term students, sometimes people just say it's enough. I can't do it. And they drop out. So we want to make sure they're committed to their program. Um, in addition, they're going to explain, write a little essay about why they want to become a nurse practitioner. And we have asked for two letters of recommendations, one from a faculty and one from colleagues. And then we actually have a step two where we will then set up an interview with recipients and we with one of our board members or multiple of our members and get to know you, we want to know your story. And I think for me personally, I felt so vulnerable in, you know, during this time. And even now like getting this launched, like here, I'm sharing a very, very personal story and I'm not sure how people are going to react and there could be some criticism, but I want to connect a more emotional level with the students too.
Mary Cate Leonard (24:15): Especially if this is a time of financial hardship due to an accent or XYZ, like we can also offer support in that manner too. Not just financially, but yes, we understand. We know how hard it is. If you just need to talk it out, man, like we are here to talk to you about it. So, um, that is different. That's a little bit different. And then our board will kind of meet and determine if you are the right fit. And eventually our hope is, like I said, is to just essentially be able to help everybody who applies right now since our funds are so low, our donations and our contributions are not where we would like them to be. But I have a feeling this will pick up, we do have to be, you know, a little picky and then just make sure that we're picking high quality NP students who are actually going to go out and change the world too, and are really grateful for the help.
Mary Cate Leonard (25:06): So they can apply online through our website, which is EmbraceNursing.com. And you can just click the apply button. And we are focusing our efforts locally right now. So in the Washington area, just because, just because we're so small, we do have high hopes of growing and having essentially a board for the different areas of the States, because this is going to be needed all over in the Southwest Midwest, East coast. We could all use a little bit of extra help. So like I said, we have big dreams for that and then contribution. So you can donate on our website or there is a PayPal button just click donate and you can choose your amount. And that kicks it over to us. If you can't donate, there's so many other ways that people can help us and they can do that by sharing our name, getting us in contact with somebody who might be willing to donate.
Mary Cate Leonard (26:01): The other thing is too, is if anybody has connections to gosh, big business or companies, who'd be willing to do gift cards or, you know, a couple of free subscriptions, anything like that, it doesn't necessarily have to be just money. Or if you know anybody who's willing to do some merchandise for us at a really great discounted level. So then we can sell it and make it, you know, a little bit of a profit off of that for embrace. That would be awesome too. We're kind of are open to all the ideas and all the avenues because we don't want to close any doors. We want to be able to do a lot of good. So just reach out. If you think that there's somebody who can help us, man, shoot us an email, I will respond pretty darn quickly because like I said, it's my baby.
Naseema McElroy (26:48): And I am, I'm excited to get this goal and, you know, get it off the ground and do some more good. Well, I really thank you for turning your story of adversity into an opportunity to help others. So many people could just use this as an opportunity to kind of wallow and woo was me. But instead of doing this, you found cracks in the system that needed to be mended and you took it upon yourself to do it. And so I want to commend you for that. I'm super proud of you and I'm super proud of the mission for embrace nursing. You guys, please donate anything that you can help. And if you do have those connections, please reach out on the website. So everything is at embracednursing.com. Yes. And so make sure to head over there, make sure to give Mary Kay some love, follow her on all the socials.
Naseema McElroy (27:41): I'll have all your social handles linked below. And again, I just want to thank you so much for being vulnerable, sharing your story, but turning your tragedy into triumph, not for yourself, but for so many, not just for yourself, I should say, but for so many other people and it's still in its infancy. And so I'm looking forward to just seeing your glow up and all the wonderful things you're able to do in the world. And you're not even finished with your NP program. And I think that that is so dope that you are just even back and you're still in the trenches girl. So I commend you. And I want to thank you so much for just being here and sharing with us. But most importantly, I want to thank you for the service that you're doing for the nursing community.
Mary Cate Leonard (28:24): Oh my gosh. No, thank you. And thank you for reaching out to me and finding me I'm so grateful for the opportunity. This is, this is going to be huge and I'm so glad that we connected and have this partnership. Now I'm feeling pretty blessed.
Hey there I’m Naseema
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