An easy way to help ministries

As she set out to get her estate plans in order, Mary Diane Steltenkamp remembered a conversation with a former colleague from several years earlier.

Steltenkamp is a former a nurse for the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. At the office one day, she mentioned to Barney Semtner, who was executive director of the Catholic Foundation of Oklahoma, that she needed to do some estate planning. He recommended she consider the foundation when that time came.

“My life has been in nursing, retreat work and spiritual direction,” Steltenkamp said. As for helping her favorite ministries through her estate, “I needed somebody to help me.”

Steltenkamp recently followed through and contacted the foundation about making legacy gifts to Saint Eugene Catholic Church, the Center of Family Love in Okarche and Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City.

The choices were easy for her. 

Her family was among those who founded Saint Eugene Catholic Church when she was in eighth grade, and she has been an active member of the parish ever since.

Her youngest brother, Chris, was born with Down syndrome. “Our family would have done anything to have a facility such as the Center of Family Love to have Chris go there,” she said. “Unfortunately, there wasn’t such a thing.”

As for Catholic Charities, Steltenkamp is a former board member and 15-year employee. 

“I believe it’s one of the best social services agencies we have in our city and the country,” she said. “I’ve seen from the inside the great work they’ve done.”

The Catholic Foundation was able to accommodate Steltenkamp, through endowed funds that benefit Saint Eugene Catholic Church, Catholic Charities and the Center of Family Love. Steltenkamp has directed that the gifts from her estate be designated to the foundation, which will then place those gifts into the specific endowed funds. 

Her gifts will help provide funding, in perpetuity, to the three ministries she holds so dear.

“I came to realize that the foundation is the perfect place to deal with these places,” Steltenkamp said. “It was a given.”

The mission of the Catholic Foundation is to create new endowments and charitable funds, and grow its existing funds, to support parishes, schools, and other ministries of the Catholic Church in central and western
Oklahoma.

For more information about endowed funds, contact Owen Canfield at (405) 709-2897 or [email protected].

Owen Canfield is associate director of gift planning for The Catholic Foundation of Oklahoma.