alumni today
SERVICE
Working for Working
Mothers
In the late 1800s, a wave of women arrived
in Chicago to work in factories and shops.
Unprepared for urban life, the women needed
safe, affordable housing, health care and good
advice. The Eleanor Foundation was founded
in 1898 to help them.
More than 100 years later, the jobs have
changed, but the challenges persist. That’s why
Courtney Miller Cavatoni ’ 93, a managing
director at JP Morgan Private Bank, was interested when a colleague approached her about
serving on the foundation board.
“As a working mother,” Cavatoni says, “I
knew how tough it was to balance needs of
job, children and spouse, even when I have
none of the challenges that these women face
in terms of housing, credit and jobs. That’s why
I got involved — because I could relate to the
challenge.”
COURTESY OF THE ELEANOR FOUNDATION
The Eleanor properties that were
Foundation focuses used for boarding
on programs for women and placed
low-income working those funds in an
women who head endowment. The
Chicago households foundation provides
and are trying to grants to hub organi-achieve sustainable zations across Chicago
economic inde- that offer a range of
pendence. It provides services. That’s impor-funding, challenge tant, Cavatoni says,
grants, research and because these working
Courtney Cavatoni ’ 93, right, puts her background as a work-
ing mother and financial mananger to work for the Eleanor
institutional expert- mothers don’t have
Foundation helping other women build better lives.
ise to organizations the time or the
for programs addressing the core barriers faced resources to go to different parts of the city for
by such women. each type of service. The goal is to provide the
Cavatoni, who recently agreed to serve as support these women need to get out of a
board secretary, says the mission is compelling. day-to-day survival mode and into jobs that
How can a woman manage on less than can become careers.
$30,000 a year, sometimes as little as $10,000, “Approximately 80 percent of our target
in a city where the average monthly rent for a population does not access any help or any
two-bedroom apartment is $1,087? How does services,” Cavatoni says, adding that the
she get health care for her children and her- women have jobs and do not want handouts.
self? How can she afford child care? “In many cases these women are the corner-
In 2002, the foundation sold the last of the stones of their communities.”
MUSIC
Hitting the High Notes
Mark Dale Belk ’ 95 doesn’t just go to
Chapel Hill in his mind. From his perch as a
part-time bartender at Top of the Hill on
Franklin Street, he regularly soaks up the late-night feel of the college town. Now he and his
band, reggae-rock flavored The High &
Mighties, have turned that inspiration into an
anthem about Blue Heaven.
“We had talked about doing some UNC-specific songs,” Belk says. “And it dawned on
us that UNC doesn’t have its own song.
Carolina in My Mind [written by hometown
boy James Taylor] is an N.C. song, but nothing
specific to Chapel Hill. We could be the band
to write that song.”
The result is Chapel on the Hill, a song with
a soft reggae beat that Belk chose to echo the
feeling of walking down Franklin Street and
crossing the campus past the Old Well and
Silent Sam, as he puts it, “just checking things
out.” The lyrics fit the ambling mood of the
Carolina graduate who narrates the song: “On
some crisp October nights I feel my spirit call / For
me to come back home no matter what my will /
Sometimes I find myself back in Chapel Hill ...
/Hit Pepper’s Pizza for a slice walking down
Franklin Street /Pass a lady selling flowers, Hare
Krishnas kick their beat/ Sip a summer on the patio
at Top of the Hill/ With all these ladies passing by I
might forget my bill …”
The song has gotten air play on campus
radio station WXYC, town station WCHL and
at UNC baseball games. The group has
released its Evolution EP and put the van back
on the road. However, if Chapel on the Hill
helps the band get on the map, Belk wants it
clear he is not looking to exploit the nostalgia
of his fellow alumni. Proceeds from sales of the
COUR TESY OF MARK BELK ’ 95
Mark Belk ’ 95, center, and The High & Mighties will
donate proceeds from Chapel on the Hill to a children’s
health program.
song (available at The High & Mighties Web
site) will be donated to the health care organization N.C. Children’s Promise (ncchildrens-
promise.org), a project inspired by the death of
Belk’s younger brother, Brian Ray Belk, who
received a heart transplant in 2001 and died
from complications about five years later.
