Stephen's Footprint
A foundation within the Good Samaritan Foundation awards scholarships -- and exquisite silver pendants, specially designed by Krombholz Jewelers -- to nursing students.

Stephen Smith and his family have taken an indelible tragedy and turned it into new opportunity for nursing students in the Cincinnati area to attend the Good Samaritan College of Nursing. Smith runs the Eight Days One Hour Foundation.

Eight Days One Hour Foundation

"The name of our foundation is a result of our grandson having lived only eight days and one hour," Smith says. "However, it was because of the kindness, compassion and care provided by the nurses at Good Samaritan that we chose to establish a scholarship based on a memorial to him and our memory of our experience with the nurses during those hours."

Smith, his daughter and the rest of the family were lucky to receive the attentive and heartfelt care of the nursing staff at Good Samaritan Hospital, where Stephen Jason Morsch was born, he says. "I think the real test of a profession is when something goes wrong," Smith says. "The nurses at Good Samaritan knew exactly what to do and were so helpful to us. It was a side of the healthcare profession I'd never seen before."

As a result of this impeccable care, Smith says, he and his family decided to start the foundation to provide scholarships for nursing students at Good Samaritan in the amount of $1,000. The first scholarship was awarded in August 2006, and the foundation continues to give our one scholarship each year, with plans to start giving a few more once it has the financial backing.

In addition to the great honor of receiving the scholarship, recipients are also given a silver pendant with Morsch's footprint engraved into it, designed by Lee Krombholz Jewelers. "We have thus far given $6,000 in scholarships to nurses ñ- in addition to six silver pendants that have the engraved footprints of our grandson," Smith says.

The foundation is in the process of expanding to hopefully be able to provide three or four scholarships to students per year, Smith says. As part of reaching this goal, the foundation is holding a fundraising event with Cincy Chic this spring. "We hope that after this year's event we'll reach that milestone and be able to open the program up to other schools of nursing," Smith says.

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