Ardath M. Cade Scholarship Fund Serves Those Who Service The Community

You can’t start over a community, but you can make it more workable. Maybe I was supposed to be an architect. I don’t know. But I’ve learned more while doing this than I ever had before.”

Ardath Cade

Few can accurately claim that they have devoted their life to public service, but Ardath M. Cade can. She has spent nearly her entire career in the field, particularly community development, to make Severna Park and Anne Arundel County flourish as much as possible. Due to such achievements, Cade’s name is attached to the AMC Scholarship Fund, presented by Arundel Community Development Services (ACDS), which was created by Cade. It has granted more than $10,000 to six housing and community development organizations and 13 individuals in the same field, a broad spectrum that can make a world of a difference.

Cade began working in the public when she stepped into the Charles County Chamber of Commerce in the mid-1960s, an opportunity that sprung many more, taking her all the way to the state level to work with the governor and Maryland legislators to advocate for these community developments. In turn for Cade’s many contributions, Tara Clifford insisted that the scholarship be named after Cade.

Cade, who at first resisted the move to name it as such, can be credited for the success that not only the fund has, but ACDS in general. The name is “after someone who is a living example of mentoring and building the capacity in the nonprofit organizations that are engaged in community development,” said Erin Shearman, the ACDS policy and development director.

As someone who oversees such grants, Shearman gives this one a new level of importance to help those who have a passion for helping others in the community. From Cade’s eyes, the fund provides just the needed amount.

“It’s used to get the funds to train people - to make them a little more professionally better than they were,” Cade said, “and that’s really what it’s all about.”

Most of the funds help local nonprofits and individuals, such as Kelly Anderson, who was stepping into the main leadership position at Sarah’s House, Anne Arundel County’s homeless shelter, and needed to take a course at Leadership Anne Arundel.

“The scholarship was an absolutely necessary part of me moving into a leadership position at Sarah’s House, seeing I hadn’t developed the skill to take different perspectives and see things at a different level,” Anderson said.

Acquiring that skill wouldn’t have been possible without the funding needed to further her education in leadership.

For the future of the fund, Shearman is looking to spread awareness and generate interest. Anderson can vouch for it, advocating for the AMC fund as something to better the community.

Cade is still involved in public service and community development, being on the board for Maryland Citizens of the Arts, the school board for St. Martin's-in-the-Field Episcopal School, and chair of the Maryland Lenin Drive sister state committee in accordance with Russia, based in St. Petersburg, Maryland.

“For a lot of people at this time in life, it’s appropriate for them to be doing a lot less,” Cade said. “But for me, just as an individual person, I’m happy to still be involved in things. Why slow down if you don’t want to?”