Pledge for Notre Dame ACE Academies in Tucson Passes Along a Parish's Blessings

A Catholic parish in the Diocese of Tucson, Arizona, has pledged an extraordinary $800,000 gift as a sign of solidarity with elementary school students from one of the nation’s most impoverished communities.

The pledge, part of a capital campaign to improve school facilities in the diocese, is a model other parishes may wish to follow. This show of support for two Notre Dame ACE Academies in downtown Tucson has been pledged by the people of Our Lady of the Valley Parish in the retirement community of Green Valley, Ariz., some 20 miles away.

The inner-city schools, now in their fourth year of partnership as Notre Dame ACE Academies schools, foster innovative opportunities for disadvantaged children to overcome the achievement gap that has plagued children in Tucson’s largely Latino south side neighborhoods.

The two Tucson schools slated to receive this generous investment in their students’ future are St. John the Evangelist and Santa Cruz. Standardized tests already show academic achievement rising under a transformative partnership with the University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE).

A new fund-raising campaign aims to improve the school facilities even as the partnership has already energized the Catholic identity and student-teacher interactions inside the buildings.

A bold response of $800,000 in pledges to the campaign came from the parish of Our Lady of the Valley, which has no school of its own. Many Green Valley residents are retirees.

These parishioners made a gesture of hope and solidarity needed throughout the Church and the Diocese of Tucson. The diocesan campaign continues through 2014, with a goal of raising $5.7 million.

“Our Lady of the Valley Parish stands as a beacon of inspiration for all people of good will who can answer the call of Pope Francis and the Lord’s piercing question about how we are serving the least of our brothers and sisters,” said the Most Rev. Gerald Kicanas, Bishop of the Diocese of Tucson.

“This generous contribution in support of the Notre Dame ACE Academies embodies the parishioners’ ‘yes’ to the Lord, to the educational mission of the Church, and to the entire Tucson region,” Kicanas said. “These students will benefit from the Catholic school advantage, which increases their likelihood of college and career success while making them more engaged citizens and more faith-filled Catholics.”

Notre Dame’s own “Catholic School Advantage” campaign, which has sharply increased Latino enrollments in the Notre Dame ACE Academies, is working to bring those benefits to students in schools around the country.

“I hope parishes everywhere will emulate Our Lady of the Valley,” said Catholic School Advantage campaign director Rev. Joseph Corpora, C.S.C. “The people of Our Lady of the Valley understand how vital Catholic schools continue to be to the future of the Church.  Our schools continue to be the Church's best arm for the New Evangelization.  Children who attend our Catholic schools will learn of the Catholic faith and the joy of the Gospel.  We need to keep our Catholic schools strong and welcoming to kids of all economic backgrounds.  I am deeply grateful to the people of Our Lady of the Valley Parish for their tremendous generosity."   

Rev. Francisco Maldonado, pastor of Our Lady of the Valley, said he believes the pledges parishioners have made reflect the parish’s own faith-filled community. “These good folks saw Catholic schools and the Catholic faith bring graces to their own families, to their own lives, and to their own parish and neighborhood,” Maldonado said. “They’re accepting their responsibility to pass along the power of love—really the message of the New Evangelization—to the next generation, and our parish will be among those blessed by this.”

Photo: Most Rev. Gerald Kicanas, Bishop of Tucson, with students from Notre Dame ACE Academies partnership in his diocese.