“If not now, when?” Cathy Lonas asks as she reflects on her journey to the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and the reason behind her legacy gift. At the age of 53, Lonas, who was well established in her business and marketing career, embarked on a nursing degree — an inflection point in her life.
Lonas, a lifelong learner, shares how education alleviated some of her darkest days. Growing up, she faced trauma and abuse but persevered, breaking away from a tumultuous environment.
“Those experiences are lifelong and have a lifelong impact,” explains Lonas. “I survived and created a fulfilling life for myself through education.”
Hopkins is where Lonas realized her personal adversity and professional life had been guiding her towards nursing.
“Everything started weaving together,” says Lonas, Nurs ’07. “The background of my childhood trauma, of care, of seeing nurses in action, all of that started to combine.”
The immense gratitude Lonas has for the School of Nursing motivated her to include the school in her estate plan, establishing the Cathy Lonas RN ’07 Scholarship for Psych DNP Students and the Cathy Lonas RN ’07 Strive to Thrive Fund.
We spoke with Lonas about her giving, career, and why it’s never too late to chase your dreams.
During my career in business, I became more immersed in health care and gerontology. After I earned my master’s degrees in marketing and gerontology, I spent several years working in marketing at retirement communities. I told my late husband that I felt older adults were not being heard, and I perceived this as a problem. He responded, ‘What are you going to do about it?’ At 50, I marched into my local community college and earned my certified nursing assistant (CNA) degree. I needed to prove to myself I could do it.
In the spring of ’06, I enrolled at Hopkins. I showed up in Baltimore, and the race was on. I was in my early 50s, and I was acing organic chemistry. You are never too old to go back to school.
After graduation, I started my own geriatric care management practice. It was hands-on care. My clients were in their 70s, 80s, 90s, and 100s. I’m now retired, but I miss it every day.
Through the scholarship, I hope I can give nurses interested in psych and mental health the opportunity to experience the extraordinary clinical training at Hopkins. I want students to learn through the Hopkins lens how to navigate the changing waters of our health care system.
The second part, the Strive to Thrive Fund, is born out of my experiences, and it fits into that nursing component as well. It’s to provide additional training, funds, and opportunities for students to learn how to use the danger assessment tool. It’s an instrument designed to measure the risk in women for death or almost death from an intimate partner.
The insidious nature of abuse is victims are trained to hide it, keep quiet, and not tell. Let’s expand the danger assessment training to all health care professionals and providers to help support victims. We can teach victims they can survive and thrive through support services.
Hopkins has been an invaluable part of who I have become. I can still see the auditorium on my first day, full of professors and classmates; they live in me today. The Hopkins credential is priceless. It is only in the aftermath that I have fully embraced and acknowledged the experience I have been privileged to receive. The School of Nursing is a family. Our motto is vigilando, which means ‘forever watchful.’ It’s my goal and my wish with my gifts to help the next generations of nurses succeed.
The hallmark of my Hopkins experience is attending the School of Nursing at a late age. It put a capstone on my career.
When I developed my legacy gift, I never anticipated it would happen — as the reality sank in on what I had just done, nobody could have prepared me for the sense of gratitude and peace. It was such a full-hearted moment. It’s still sinking in. The when is now, and I am grateful.
This story first appeared in the Spring/Summer 2025 edition of Planning Matters.
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Topics: Alumni, School of Nursing, Promote and Protect Health