Featured Blog Post

Written by: Emily Gilloon

“Would you rather live forever with a bucket on one foot or five bottles on your fingers? Would you rather be a giant hamster or a tiny rhino? Would you rather be able to stop time or fly?”

These and many other peculiar scenarios hummed throughout Ryan Schwab’s fifth grade classroom as 16 pairs of our Little Flower and St. John’s students timidly (and awkwardly) participated in a get-to-know-you icebreaker. Like so many of the best ideas in teaching, Ryan and I had decided on a whim to bring our two classes together before the exciting ACE bus celebration took place at St. John’s in Pensacola. As both of us quietly observed our classes, I couldn’t help but feel undeniably joyful, blessed and grateful.

Just about two years before I learned Ryan would rather fly than be able to stop time, I accepted a post-ACE job at a company in my hometown of Dubuque, Iowa. That June I packed up my life in Pensacola, took a 17-hour road trip back home to Iowa, and officially left behind a community of teachers, housemates and students whom I had come to love during two of the most professionally and spiritually fulfilling years of my life. I left Pensacola with a heavy heart, but I was excited about the prospect of starting a new job and spending more time with my family.

Six months later, my longing for my ACE friends, job and life hadn’t faded as I had hoped it would. I started to question my decision to leave Pensacola at all. I daydreamed about moving back to the Sunshine State and being near my ACE housemates and former coworkers. More importantly, I craved working in a place where I could pray freely, say the words “Merry Christmas” at work and attend Mass weekly as part of my job. The time I spent outside the classroom helped me to realize I craved the sense of purpose and joy that comes with teaching in a Catholic school. In February of last year, after months of prayers, doubts and indecisiveness, I emailed my former ACE principal and asked if it was too late to apply for the fifth grade position I knew would be open in the fall.

She wrote back that day and told me she received my email only a few mere hours before she was going request a new ACE teacher for the job I wanted. At that moment, I knew God had been right beside me the whole time, guiding my thoughts, the exact words I wrote to her and my final decision just to press “send” and see what happened.

A year after sending that email, I stood next to my 16 giggly students in the sunny St. John’s parking lot, waving my “Catholic Schools are Good for America” flag, and smiling to myself as Fr. Lou DelFra and the ACE bus rolled in. Would I rather be working a job with a bigger paycheck, fewer responsibilities and more free time on the weekends? Absolutely not. Instead I thank God every day for surrounding me with curious students, devoted teachers and friends and for allowing me to grow as a Catholic educator.

Written by: Eric Prister

“Once you’re safe, you can do anything.”

In Chicago in 1986, many children were anything but safe. Crime rates were high, poverty rates were high, and Chicago was known for having some of the worst public schools in the country.

Then archbishop of the archdiocese of America’s third-largest city, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin saw this problem, but was unsure how to fix solve it. Demand for Catholic schools in Chicago was great, but parishes didn’t have the money to keep the schools running, and families didn’t have the money to send their kids there anyway.

Bernardin approached business leaders around Chicago for their support, and they rose to the occasion. They wanted to create an organization that supported Catholic schools in the Chicago area, but didn’t want it connected to the diocese—thus, the Big Shoulders Fund was born.

Big Shoulders’ original goal was to raise $1 million so that underprivileged Chicago children could attend Catholic schools. Today, twenty-six years after the program was founded, Big Shoulders has raised more than $250 million.

Big Shoulders works with ninety-three schools and 24,000 students in the Chicago area. They still provide scholarships, as the organization originally sought to do, but they also saw a need for improvement of education in other areas.

“It’s great to have kids in these schools,” Carolyn Gibbs Broughton, ACE graduate and Director of Academic Programs and Student Enrichment at Big Shoulders, said. “But we have to make sure they’re quality schools.

Broughton said that Big Shoulders now focuses on four areas of improvement: scholarships, operations, academic enhancement, and leadership development.

Big Shoulders’ operations efforts come in the form of a patrons program, which matches local business leaders with a school. The patron donates money to the school each year for operational needs—maintenance for the school building, for example— and academic enhancement in the form of music teachers, art supplies, etc. The patron takes an integral role in the school, not only with their contribution, but in the decision-making process on what to do with the funds.

Big Shoulders has also started seeking out potential school leaders and helping them earn their Masters degree. Big Shoulders will pay one-third of the tuition for a participant to earn his or her degree in educational administration as long as the participant agrees to give three years serving as a leader in a Big Shoulders school.

More than the training and the funding, Big Shoulders sought to, and succeeds in addressing the problem of safety in Chicago. A study done by law professors at the University of Notre Dame found a correlation between Catholic schools closing in a neighborhood and an increase in crime rate. Gibbs said that there is a need for Catholic schools in Chicago, a need for safe places for students to come and learn.

“These schools are safe havens. Everyone should have access to a safe and quality school,” she said. “There is a demand for Catholic schools in Chicago—we just need to find innovative ways to give them that chance.”

Throughout twenty-six years serving the people of Chicago, Big Shoulders has constantly sought and utilized innovative ways of helping students receive a quality education, and has provided them with a safe place to succeed.

 Read more from 20 Catholic School Stories You Should Know

Written by: Caroline Lang

Amazing people all over the country are changing the lives of students in Catholic schools every day. Teachers, administrators, parents, and supporters of Catholic schools work tirelessly to provide every child a quality education. While it’s not possible to tell every story, and give every person the recognition he or she deserves, the 20 Catholic School Stories You Should Know series will help tell some of the best, most heartwarming, most life-changing stories about simple people doing extraordinary things for the cause of Catholic education.

What better way to kick of the 20 Catholic School Stories You Should Know series than by telling the story of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, the founder of Catholic schools in America. Her story is truly the first Catholic school story, and the one without which none of the others would be possible.

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"The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.” Mt 13:31-32

Every great and mighty tree, like every great endeavor, begins as a single seed, requiring care and nurturing to reach its full potential.

Before 1634, the fields in which to plant the seeds of faith in the New World were largely fenced off to Catholics, and anti-Catholicism was official government policy in the English colonies. It wasn’t until Lord Baltimore founded Maryland as the first “non-denominational” colony that the seeds of Catholicism were able to take root in America.

Even after Lord Baltimore established a tolerant state, the Catholic seedlings weathered terrible treatment, constantly trampled by persecution and choked by legal restraint. This oppression lasted for more than a hundred years, until it was largely mollified by the French involvement in the American Revolution, and a respect for their culture and Catholic identity developed.

This new respect largely cleared the skies for Catholicism and turned over a new leaf for its potential to grow, given the proper attention and caretakers.

Elizabeth Ann Seton became one such caretaker, sowing new seeds and meticulously cultivating the great tree of American Catholicism.

A convert to Catholicism, Elizabeth was confirmed into the faith by the Right Reverend John Carroll, the first and only Catholic bishop in America at that time. Elizabeth then founded an academy for young women, but enrollment numbers dwindled as news of her conversion to Catholicism spread, as anti-Catholicism was still prevalent.

During this troubling time, Elizabeth sought the spiritual counsel of a visiting priest, the Abbé Louis Dubourg, a French émigré of the Society of Saint-Sulpice. The Sulpicians were in the process of establishing the first Catholic seminary in the United States, and Dubourg invited Elizabeth to join them in their mission in Emmitsburg, Md.

A year later in 1810, Elizabeth established the St. Joseph’s Academy and Free School dedicated to the education of young Catholic women and made possible by the financial support of Samuel Sutherland Cooper, a wealthy convert and seminarian at the newly established, nearby Mount Saint Mary's University.

Around this time, Elizabeth also founded the first congregation of religious sisters in the United States, the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph’s, which was dedicated to the care of the children of the poor.

Mother Seton, as she was henceforth known, dedicated the rest of her life to nurturing Catholic education in America, knowing that instilling the seeds of faith in the nation’s youth was the best way to cultivate the Church in America.

Pope Paul VI officially canonized Mother Seton on Sept. 14, 1975, making her the first native-born American saint.

The branches of Elizabeth Ann Seton’s legacy continue to grow and extend their reach over American Catholicism today. St. Elizabeth Ann Seton is honored as the patron saint of Catholic schools for the tremendous impact she had in the nascence of American Catholic education. Not only does Mother Seton School still exist in Emmitsburg as a direct descendant of St. Joseph’s Academy and Free School, but six separate religious congregations also trace their roots back to her Sisters of Charity.

Directly or indirectly, Catholic schools from Los Angeles to New York, Seattle to Miami owe their success largely to Mother Seton, who tended so tirelessly to the seeds of Catholicism—and the even smaller mustard seed of Catholic education. Her efforts allowed them to take root and grow into the beautiful, fruitful trees of faith we continue to cultivate today in our nation’s Catholic schools.