Karen Bernhard-Meyer, 43, a community activist on behalf of Chicago’s public school children, was a member of the local school council for Stone Scholastic Academy.
She also lobbied in Springfield with Designs for Change for additional school funding and served as pilot project coordinator for the Save A Life Foundation Inc. to bring knowledge of CPR and first aid to the city’s elementary school children.
A resident of the West Rogers Park neighborhood, she died Sunday at home.
“Anyone who had met her,” said Cheryl Aaron, the chairperson of Chicago Area Local School Councils, “would find the passion that moved her– breathless. She put 100 percent of herself in everything she did. I was rolled over by her intense, selfless, concentrated focus on just the role she accepted as an LSC member at Stone Academy.”
Mrs. Bernhard-Meyer had run for the position although she had no children of her own and had lived in the neighborhood for only three years. She was elected with a substantial majority.
“She loved children,” her husband, Robert, said. “She must have gone to Springfield eight times to fight for more money for schoolchildren in the state.”
On one of her trips there, she learned of the Save A Life Foundation, founded by Carol Spizziri after her daughter bled to death from a leg wound in a 1992 accident.
Mrs. Bernhard-Meyer introduced the foundation’s Save A Life For Kids Program at Stone Scholastic Academy and invited the press and local politicians to witness the children’s reactions. She also sought to spread the idea to other schools throughout the Chicago area.
A graduate of Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., she was fluent in three languages.
Survivors, besides her husband, include her parents, Helen and Henry Bernhard; two brothers; and a sister.
Memorial services will be held in Tuxedo Park, N.Y.
