Happy Twenty-Third Sunday!
Last week, we began delving into the nuts and bolts of our diocesan capital campaign. It will seek to raise $70 million across our 72 parishes in the form of Catholic education endowments that contribute financial resources in perpetuity to three major areas of need. The first is Catholic educator training, retention, and compensation, which we looked at last week through the details of the On Mission endowment. Today we’ll look at the other two goals.
AFFORDABLE. The next priority of the campaign will receive 30% of its funds, or $21 million. Its beneficiaries are the families of our Catholic school students. Moms, dads, grandparents, relatives, and guardians make real sacrifices to give their children a faith-based education, and the Diocese of Lansing wants to help keep it within reach by removing financial barriers and expanding access to tuition assistance for current and new families.
The diocesan financial aid endowment, created under the Witness to Hope campaign, currently distributes about $650,000 in tuition grants each year to students across our Catholic schools. Families who apply may receive an annual tuition subsidy, capped at $750 per family for grades K-8, and $1,500 per family for grades 9-12. Unfortunately, the need for this assistance far outpaces the endowment’s output. Money raised from this campaign will increase its distribution rate to about $1.5 million per year. Grant caps per family will increase from $750 to as much as $1,500 for K-8 students, and from $1,500 to as much as $3,000 for high school students. This fund will provide about $400,000 in tuition subsidies for our St. Robert families over the next decade.
In addition, the diocese is establishing a ‘new family’ fund that can offer additional one-time grants of up to $1,000 for elementary students and up to $2,000 for high school students for families who are new to our Catholic schools.
ACCESSIBLE. The final priority of the campaign will receive 15% of its funds, or $10.5 million. Its beneficiaries are the families of our students with special needs, and our four regional Catholic high schools. Due to the lack of access to public special education funds and the lack of economies of scale, most Catholic schools are unable to train or employ the educators necessary to help our kids with special educational needs. Funds for this portion of the diocesan campaign will begin distributing over $100,000 in annual grants to provide teacher training and resources for our Catholic schools to better serve these children. In addition, our four Catholic high schools will each receive $2 million for major projects and facilities upgrades.
In all, $56 million of the Stewardship for Saints and Scholars campaign will provide direct, stable, long-term material resource support so that our Catholic schools remain strong into the future. The final 20%, $14 million, is slated to remain within our parishes for local initiatives. We’ll see what that looks like for us in next week’s bulletin.
Fr. Brian
