We are blessed to have extraordinary adults teaching and working on the staff at St. Michael. They are not “in it” to become rich! Rather, they see their job as a calling. They love their students and our St. Michael community.
But when these same teachers enroll their own children in our schools, they often cannot afford to do so without needing to ask for financial aid. This is a shame!
We are asking for your help to do something about this. It is our dream that all St. Michael teachers and staff will send their children to St. Michael at a great reduction in costs—perhaps, one day—tuition free. This would relieve our teachers of an enormous amount of stress! And as a side benefit, it would increase the competitiveness for teaching positions in our four schools—a true “win-win."
(Above: Faculty/Staff of St. Michael Catholic High School, 2022)
To accomplish this dream, we have an initiative called the “Seton Scholarship.” Elizabeth Ann Seton was the first native born person to become a canonized a saint in America. She began the Sisters of Charity, and was founder of one of the first Catholic schools in the United States. We honor her by seeking to support the teachers who follow in her footsteps.
In the short term, we will allocate monies received in a given year to assist teachers for next year. We’ll do as much as we can do, depending on the response to this initiative.
In the long term, we hope to create a Seton Scholarship endowment, growing the corpus of the endowment so that we can use just the interest to fund the scholarships in perpetuity. How quickly might that happen? We don’t know. It will depend on God’s providence and the generosity of our donors. But I know this: Though we are convinced our teachers’ hearts and souls are committed to the mission of our schools, they also have bills to pay and mouths to feed. If we can help find ways to support them as heads of households, such as offset the costs of educating their children, we have a much better chance of keeping them for the long term.
Will you consider helping us begin? No gift is too small—or too large! Please consider “paying the gift forward” of our Catholic education by supporting our teachers. Just mark your gift "Seton Scholarship." Thank you.