The Catholic Education Foundation’s 34th annual Salute to Catholic School Alumni Dinner set another record, netting $1.6 million for tuition assistance.
This is the 15th consecutive year the dinner has set a fundraising record, said Richard A. Lechleiter, the foundation’s president. Lechleiter emceed the event that drew about 1,300 people on March 5 to the Galt House Hotel in downtown Louisville.
The sold-out event honored six alumni of Catholic schools and featured two speakers — a young Catholic school alumna, who shared how the CEF helped her family, and Father Nathan Wills, who serves on the faculty of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE).
Valentina Rocha, who attended St. Rita School and Mercy Academy with help from the foundation, said she is now a student at the University of Louisville’s J.B. Speed School of Engineering.
She told the crowd that she and her family moved from Colombia, South America, to Louisville when she was 9 years old. They faced many financial struggles, but found a path to Catholic education through the foundation, she said.
“Words aren’t enough to say how thankful I am to the CEF and to the donors,” Rocha said.
Lechleiter told those in attendance that “Valentina’s story is the reason we’re here tonight.” He said the foundation has invested $8 million into tuition assistance for 3,700 students this school year.
The packed ballroom also heard from keynote speaker Father Nathan Wills, telling those gathered that it was a “joy to be able to reflect on Catholic education” not from an abstract but from a “very personal” point of view.
“Catholic education has had a profound impact on my life as a first-generation college kid, as a priest, and as a disciple of Jesus Christ,” said Father Wills. His mother, who worked in an emergency room in St. Paul, Minn., invested her entire salary into her children’s Catholic education and he’s “forever grateful” to her, he said. His Catholic school teachers “witnessed to the faith to me and loved me into the person that I am today.”
Father Wills noted that Notre Dame’s ACE program forms college students to be teachers in under-resourced schools throughout the nation and that the program has been “wildly successful.”
Everyone in attendance at the Salute, he noted, is part of Catholic education.
“You all are involved in the mission and ministry of Catholic education just by your presence here tonight,” he said.
Father Wills went on to say that in a time when there’s much talk about “disaffiliation and secularization, Catholic schools give me hope,” he said.
“Our classrooms might look a little different — first grade, middle school, 10th grade, a football field, theatre, a band room — but these are all sacramental places where we enter into the lives of students and demand them to be engaged and introduce them to the love which comes from God,” said Father Wills. “The reach of our Catholic education is far and wide and into eternity.”
Father Wills thanked educators, telling them he’s inspired by their work and dedication and that they’ve taken up the mantle of the apostles of Jesus in their ministry.
Father Wills also thanked all those who’ve invested in the Catholic Education Foundation’s mission and asked them to consider increasing their donation. To everyone else, he asked that they consider joining “this great mission” to help families in need.
Archbishop Shelton J. Fabre similarly offered his thanks during the event’s opening remarks. He thanked the foundation, its supporters and the educators in attendance for their “great devotion to Catholic education.”
Those who were honored at the dinner were: Mariah Weyland Gratz, Father J. Wayne Jenkins, a retired priest of the Archdiocese of Louisville, Honorable Annette C. Karem, W. James Lintner, Jr., Matthew W. Ott and Charles D. Tewell.
The community service award was presented to Charles J. Dahlem. Additionally, the Father Joseph McGee Award was presented to Julie M. Domzalski, a teacher at St. Margaret Mary School.
