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Donation to Catholic Schools
By dorothy.bialke | June 20, 2008
On Wednesday, June 18, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis announced publicly that an anonymous donor donated $10 million over the next ten years to 15 Catholic Schools who are members of FOCUS. This is great news for St. Raphael’s Catholic School because we are members of FOCUS.
FOCUS (Friends of Catholic Urban Schools) is a 501c(3) nonprofit organization that has been working for over three years to raise money for fifteen Catholic schools that are located in urban or inner ring suburban settings. St. Raphael’s Catholic School is associated with this organization because of the changing socio-economic demographics in our local community. The goal of this organization is to support schools in their development and fundraising, not replace the schools efforts.
FOCUS has worked to solicit donations from people who believe in Catholic education. These donations go to support tuition assistance and program enhancements. This past year St. Raphael’s Catholic School receive money from FOCUS to help support our standardized testing and provide tuition assistance for some of our families.
On Tuesday, June 17, I attended the FOCUS general meeting. During the meeting details were given as to how the donation is structured; however, many of the details are not finalized. Ms. Laurie Acker, Director of Urban Education for the Archdiocese will oversee the money and work with the donor to finalize the plan. I have outlined the details that were shared and how this donation will impact St. Raphael’s Catholic School.
- Each year for ten years, 1 million dollars will be given.
- Sixty plus percent will go to scholarships.
- Most of these scholarships will be need based however some might be designated to high achieving students.
- The division will most likely follow the percent of students who qualify for free or reduced lunch accounts.
- During the 2007-08 school year 46% of students enrolled in the FOCUS Catholic Schools qualified for free or reduced lunches.
- During the 2007-08 school year 15% of St. Raphael’s students qualified.
- St. Raphael’s students represent 3% of the total FOCUS students who qualify for free and reduced lunches.
The remaining thirty plus percent will be designated to program or curriculum enhancement. Areas of focus will be English, math, science and religion. Money and time will be spent learning how to increase the quality of teaching and learning in these subjects. Small groups of schools will focus on the different subject areas and share their research and findings with other Catholic Schools in the area.
This is great news for St. Raphael’s Catholic School! The monies received through this donation will provide additional financial aid for some students starting in the fall of 2008. Each year as we continue our review of different curricula and make improvements in instruction we will additionally benefit from the donation.
We are fortunate to be one of the recipients of this money but our work to continue stabilizing our enrollment, developing our own fundraisers and reaching out to donors will continue long into the future.
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June 24th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
What wonderful news that our school will be included in this new fund! I had read about this in the news and am happy to hear St. Raphael’s is included. thanks for the info!