If you missed last Saturday’s Take a Leap for SKS First Annual Fund Party you missed the party of the year! Over 400 alumni, parents and grandparents of alumni, parishioners and other supporters of our great school enjoyed catching up with each other and watching a terrific video that had been produced just for the occasion. I encourage you to watch this video; it will give you an insight into the spirit of our school as reported by students, parents and teachers. You can find this video on both our parish and school web sites.
By design, this First Annual Fundraiser was held on 29 February – a leap day. As you surely know, the leap day was instituted by Emperor Julius Caesar in 46BC to begin a little correction on the Roman calendar in order to keep it accurate for the future of the Roman Empire. The purpose of the First Annual Fund Party was to begin a little correction on the financial condition of our school to keep it flourishing for its future! The response has been extraordinary and I want to thank everyone who contributed: to date, we have raised $202,000! This will bring the parish subsidy for the school this year down to the archdiocesan recommended 10% (it was 15% last year) and help to rebuild the school portion of the parish treasury that has been depleted over the past several years as a result of the parish subsidy exceeding the 10% rate. Our school is 104 years old and, with such strong support, I’m confident that it will be here for many years to come!
There were a lot of familiar faces at the party. Many of those who attended had a strong connection with our school as alumni, parents or grandparents of alumni and parents of current students. Others are strong supporters of our wonderful parish who know how important our school is to the life of our parish. I was delighted to be there. Let me tell you a little about my long and strong connection with our school.
In five weeks, I will celebrate my ninth anniversary here; I arrived on 17 April 2011; it was Palm Sunday. As you may know, I was completing my assignment in Rome and Cardinal Rigali called me in March of that year to ask if I had any preferences for an assignment as I returned home. I told him that I would like to return to parish ministry. I had been in administration for half of my priesthood and wanted to return to serving the people of God more directly. He then asked if I had any preferences for a parish assignment. I told him that I would prefer a parish where the trees are taller than the buildings (meaning someplace in the suburbs; I’m not a city person) and a parish that had a school. From my years in other parishes, I knew how important schools were to the life of a parish. As God would have it, this parish was open and the next day, I received a call to tell me that I would be assigned here. And, the first person to contact me from here was our beloved principal, Bud Tosti. He sent me an email message warmly welcoming me to the parish and saying that he looked forward to working with me. Many of those involved our school have had a similar experience and are connected with it because of Bud. I’m delighted that he is our principal and look forward to continuing to work with him for many years to come! Let me squelch the rumor that is going around about his retiring soon. He’s already committed to me that he will stay for at least another year and, after that, who knows? I expect to be here for at least another ten years and Bud’s younger than I am.
But, my connection to St. Katharine of Siena School goes back even further than that. As you may know, I’m not a native of Wayne; I was born halfway around the world in Indonesia and moved around a bit with my family as I was growing up. Over 50 years ago, however – in the summer of 1969 – I moved with my family from California to nearby Devon. The day after we moved in, our next door neighbor, Romeo Manzi, invited us over for tea. And so, all six of us (my parents and three of my siblings and I; my older brother and sister were already married and remained in California) went over and sat on our neighbor’s back porch for a cup of tea. Within ten minutes of our arrival, Romeo was bragging about St. Katharine of Siena School. He had been in the first graduating class and was very proud of this school; it launched him on a very successful career and prepared him for a very happy marriage. Again, I’m sure that many of you can relate to this story. So many people are part of the St. Katharine of Siena school family because someone – a proud parent of one of our students or an alumnus/alumna – couldn’t say enough good things about our school!
Yes, our school has a long and proud heritage. The purpose of Saturday’s party was to ensure that our school continues to be a strong and vibrant part of our parish and our community for years to come! I’d like to take this opportunity to thank our newly-formed Board of Limited Jurisdiction, under the very strong leadership of Phil Hintze, and in particular Jeanne Mulvanerty, the energetic, imaginative chair of the Board’s Development Committee, and her entire committee as well as the Leap SKS subcommittee for putting on this wonderful evening; it was a great beginning for the Board and a great way to ensure the vitality of our school for years to come!