For­mer Notre Dame Player Speak­ing at Bethel’s Fourth An­nual Give Back Gala

MISHAWAKA—On June 12, Bethel Uni­ver­sity will be host­ing its fourth an­nual Give Back Gala. The evening will be­gin at 5:30 p.m., in Wiekamp Ath­letic Cen­ter on Bethel’s cam­pus. 

Matt Lentsch, vice pres­i­dent of in­sti­tu­tional ad­vance­ment, over­sees gen­eral plan­ning and or­ga­ni­za­tion of the event. 

“From my per­spec­tive, it’s re­ally a way for us to show­case Bethel, tell our story,” Lentsch said. “Even though we’re a fairly promi­nent spot in Mishawaka, there’s a lot of folks who don’t un­der­stand who we are, what we do, and how we make a dif­fer­ence.” 

In light of COVID-19, the event has un­der­gone some mod­i­fi­ca­tions. While Lentsch said there were 500-600 peo­ple in at­ten­dance at the first two galas, last year's event was pri­mar­ily vir­tual with lim­ited in-per­son in­ter­ac­tion. At­ten­dees will be lim­ited again this year, though the ex­act num­ber re­mains to be de­ter­mined as Lentsch and oth­ers mon­i­tor lo­cal risk and county reg­u­la­tions. Any­one at­tend­ing in-per­son will be asked to wear masks, and seat­ing will be so­cially dis­tanced. The event will again be split be­tween in-per­son and vir­tual ex­pe­ri­ences, with slightly dif­fer­ent sched­ules for each that will come to­gether dur­ing the speech of Tim Brown, a for­mer Notre Dame foot­ball player and this year’s keynote speaker.  

Brown is a pro foot­ball hall of famer, a Heis­man Tro­phy win­ner, nine-time Pro Bowler and part of the NFL 1990s All-Decade Team. 

“Tim Brown has a great foot­ball story, but he’s also proac­tive in his com­mu­nity, work­ing with youth and oth­ers,” Lentsch said. “I have in­ten­tion­ally cho­sen peo­ple that are not just go­ing to be known by the faith com­mu­nity. He’s well-known in this com­mu­nity be­cause of Notre Dame -- he’s a Heis­man Tro­phy win­ner.” 

The pri­mary fo­cus of the event is fundrais­ing; this year, the goal is to raise $200,000. 

“That goes for stu­dent schol­ar­ships for the most part,” Lentsch said. “Some other ar­eas of great­est need for the uni­ver­sity, but mainly schol­ar­ships. About 95% of our stu­dents get some kind of fi­nan­cial aid schol­ar­ship, so it’s com­ing upon us to make sure we’re rais­ing as much money as we can to sup­port our stu­dents.”  

The VIP ex­pe­ri­ence will be­gin slightly ear­lier in the evening, at 4:30 p.m., in the Bowen Li­brary. About 150 VIP guests are ex­pected to at­tend. This por­tion of the event will ed­u­cate at­ten­dees about Bethel Uni­ver­sity and Brown, who will be avail­able for a book sign­ing at that time.  

The gala it­self will be­gin at 5:30 p.m., with din­ner, and at 6 p.m., the vir­tual event will be­gin. Keith Koteskey, M.Div., will be the mas­ter of cer­e­monies for the evening. Din­ner will be served, videos fea­tur­ing mem­bers of the Bethel com­mu­nity will be shown, the fam­ily of James Ben­nett, Ed.D., will share a song, and Barb Belle­feuille, Ed.D., will speak for the first time in her new role as in­terim pres­i­dent. Fol­low­ing this, Brown will speak and then open the floor for a time of ques­tions and an­swers. The evening will con­clude with Lentsch shar­ing briefly and giv­ing at­ten­dees the op­por­tu­nity to do­nate.