CNE National Honor Society chooses Ben Morrison Fund for Magnified gift
By Dick Maloney
Tori Morrison saw the notification in her email and opened it. What she read, she admits, shocked her.
“This is Zoe Moore from Clermont Northeastern's National Honor Society. For the past few weeks, the National Honor Society has partnered with Magnified Giving to choose a nonprofit organization to receive a $1,000 grant at a virtual Giving Ceremony. In completing the Magnified Giving process, students have learned the spirit of philanthropy.
“After researching several nonprofit organizations and presenting numerous candidates to the group, members voted to present the grant to the Ben Morrison Fund. They were moved by Ben Morrison's story and your dedication to erasing the stigma around mental health. We are happy to be able to support an organization that offers financial support to those struggling with mental health.”
Moore, a member of the CNE Class of 2023, has served as the president of the school’s National Honor Society chapter. In that role, she headed the process of deciding how CNE would choose to direct its Magnified Giving funds.
Magnified Giving, based in Evendale, was started by Roger Grein in 2008 to help young people recognize needs in the community and show them how to use their own time, talent and treasure to address those needs. The organization involves students in the grant-making process, touching their hearts and minds in the process, and ultimately supporting dozens of nonprofits each year with passionate student volunteers and Magnified Giving funds.
Ben Morrison was a student at Loveland High School in March 2021 when he took his own life. As a way to help others, his mother, Tori, started the Ben Morrison Fund. According to the group’s web site, benmorrisonfund,org, “We decided to not be quiet. If we can help one person, one family then our efforts will be worth it.”
More specifically, the group’s mission is … “erasing the stigma of mental health struggles, starting conversations, and supporting lifelines to help save lives of people in crisis.
“We strive to fulfill our mission by:
• “providing scholarships to graduating seniors at Loveland High School to encourage young people to keep moving forward through adversity;
• “providing financial support to critical support systems for young people experiencing mental health crisis.”
The fund provides scholarships to graduating seniors from Loveland.
“We are dedicated to erasing the stigma of mental health struggles, opening conversations, and offering lifelines to help save lives of young people in crisis,” the website says.
“I had just recently filled out the application and didn’t think we even had a chance this year at all,” Tori Morrison said.
Moore said her reason, and NHS’s reason, for choosing the Morrison Fund was simple:
“We thought that that was very important for kids nowadays,” she said.
“Together we looked at different social challenges in our area and different nonprofit organizations that will help us go to social challenges. Then we got to research and vote on which one you chose,” Moore said.
National Honor Society Advisor and Clermont Northeastern Student Success Coordinator Steve Thompson said Moore drove the entire process, adding that at first, the National Honor Society was not going to participate in Magnified Giving this year because of time constraints.
“What she had everybody do was get in groups, and then they all selected one particular area of philanthropy and then from there, they did their presentation, and then from the presentation they all voted on one of them,” Thompson said.
“Zoe ran this thing like a fine-tuned machine.”
“She decided that she wanted to do this since she became president. She wanted to do more outreach, more stuff with volunteering, so she ran it and did a great job.”
Thompson said that the decision to move up the NHS induction ceremony from the spring to December, which they first did in 2021, has helped the group become more active and involved.
He is also a fan of the Magnified Giving program.
“I like it because it enables students to get familiar with giving back. They are understanding the ins and outs of philanthropy, which is something they don't do here,” he said. “They do community service projects for our government classes. But this is not, it's not necessarily diving deep into giving monetary funds to someone and that's what they're doing. And I think it's a great program to really give back to the community, the area.”
For Morrison, it helps keep her son with her, and grow her efforts to raise awareness of teen suicide and mental health issues. Ben played football and lacrosse at Loveland, and was studying to take the civils service exam and become a Cincinnati firefighter. He stayed up late March 1, 2021, and happily informed his mom the next morning of those plan. That afternoon, her daughter – Ben’s sister – called to say Ben had “hurt himself.”
“We had no warning signs, no indications anything was wrong. He didn’t leave a note. I sat in the hospital in utter disbelief and knew that I could not be quiet. I had to do everything I could to try to save other young adults, other families,” she said.
“First I just wanted Ben’s name to carry on so we thought a scholarship. We gave out three scholarships the first year. We had our first fundraiser and we’re blown away by the support we received.
“2022 is when things really kicked into gear. We have out nine scholarships and started adding more fundraisers.”
Now, with help of CNE’s National Honor Society, they can reach more families.
CNE previously participated in Magnified Giving in 2019, choosing Racing for Vets and Pilot Dogs, and in 2021, choosing NEST Community Learning Center (Nutrition and Education in a Safe Environment equals transformation).