Last month we had our first ever special collection to benefit our parish’s Guardian Angels fund, resulting in a final influx at the end of the year of about $2,500 dollars. As many know, the Guardian Angels program was begun here at St. Joseph’s in the summer of 2005 to allocate limited tuition assistance to parish families who demonstrate true financial need. Thus, 25 students from 19 parish families received a total of $25,000 last year, enabling them to continue their Catholic education at our wonderful parish school.

Other contributions last year came from the Marcinauskis family, who kindly requested that donations in memory of their mother Stella Marcinauskis who passed away in March go specifically to the Guardian Angels fund, and the Geissler family, who have generously chosen to assign a yearly grant from their family charitable trust to the Guardian Angels program. Still, the primary source of funding for the Guardian Angels fund remains the small group of generous and faithful donors who commit themselves to “sponsoring” a deserving student at St. Joseph School, through 10 monthly installments (or a one-time gift) in the amount of $25 to $400 a month ($250 to $4,000 a year).

As I often say, our parish community is not affluent. It is comprised largely of blue collar and midlevel white collar workers, emergency personnel and educators, nurses and medical technicians, employees of Sikorsky and General Electric.  But for over 80 years St. Joseph Parish as a whole, and countless individual families, have sensed that there is something priceless and unique that is offered in that neat, unassuming yellow brick school building sitting on the corner of Coram Ave. and Elm Street, something that can impact and shape a child for the rest of their lives. I sensed it again myself two months ago when we were receiving responses from alumni who had received our annual request for their support. One member of the first graduating class of 1932, now around ninety, sent a check for $1,000. And then a member of last year’s graduating class, who had just completed freshman year in high school, sent in ten dollars in cash.

Both gifts touched me greatly. They renewed my firm conviction that Catholic education, for a Catholic family, for our parish, and for the Church, is a treasure absolutely worth working for and sacrificing to preserve. Thank you again this year for your generous support of the St. Joseph Guardian Angels program. Please see me personally to become a “guardian angel” for some young boy or girl this coming school year!