SOURCES OF OPPORTUNITY AND GRACE

By the time I had graduated from college, I realized that the educational opportunities I had received were unlikely. In a sense, I had overachieved. Based on my parents’ incomes, there is no way I should have been able access a private, Catholic and Jesuit education, kindergarten through college. But, that’s exactly what I did, and I’ll never forget what others were willing to do for me. To say the impact was life-changing is putting it mildly. The opportunities I received had been presented to me through a combination of my parents’ sweat equity and the value that the schools I attended placed on providing access to kids like me.

As president of Regis Jesuit, one of the most rewarding experiences I have each year is attending scholarship lunches. These are opportunities we arrange for our student recipients to meet and share a meal with their scholarship donors.

During a recent lunch, one of our students—I’ll call him Sean—was relating the impact his service experience had on the way he views himself in the context of our world. He described hard, sweaty work, relentless bugs and bug-bites and the resounding happiness of the community he had arrived to serve, despite their obvious poverty. If this observation was at first confounding, Sean characterized it as a moment of clarity. He described a life-lesson that he never would have received if not for the opportunity to attend Regis Jesuit—a ‘light-bulb’ moment of what it truly means to be a Man or Woman with and for Others. Sean described being forever changed by compassion, love and service. I know the feeling.

For me, seeing the gratification on the faces of donors who get to hear about the experiences of students who benefit from financial aid awards, and the satisfaction and gratitude of the students who receive them, is powerful. I don’t know how to describe it other than grace. The ripple-effects are quite simply too large to imagine.

Over the summer, Regis Jesuit High School reached an important milestone in its commitment to ensure more of these types of opportunities can happen for more students. Our endowment surpassed the $20 million mark, a goal we set to achieve by 2020. I’m grateful to every contributor who has helped us get there and ahead of schedule. Regis Jesuit’s endowment is a perpetually invested fund, paying out a small portion of its value each year to fund scholarships, while continuing to grow. The larger the fund grows, the more scholarships we can award. Having this resource in place has enabled us to present the Regis Jesuit opportunity to Sean and dozens of other deserving students.

Now that we have met this goal, we are aiming higher. Part of the genius of Catholic education, including the Regis Jesuit experience, is that it requires the people who seek it to have skin in the game. We value those things that we budget and pay for. But it’s clear to me that today there are too many families who desire a Regis Jesuit education and are willing to make a reasonable sacrifice for it, yet still find it inaccessible.

The vision and impact we are aiming for is one in which every qualified student who desires a Regis Jesuit education will know that we have the resources to meet their reasonable sacrifice with an open door. We can and should be proud of what we have accomplished, but the magis—the more, the better, the deeper—awaits in the form of young, hungry minds and souls who remain on the outside, looking in. There is no objective that gives me greater motivation than ensuring Regis Jesuit’s economic inclusivity. So today we rightly celebrate the milestone, and we also joyfully commit ourselves to the next summit.

May God bless the mission and journey.

AMDG

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David Card '87 is Regis Jesuit's president. He writes for Inspire & Ignite generally on the first Friday of each month.