Lupe Garcia knows that every little bit helps when you have five children in private school. The Garcia children all attend or have attended Catholic schools, and all received tuition assistance through the CCF Direct: Tuition Assistance Program. The are, from left, Daniella, 17, Akoni, 16, Sarah, 9, Jose, 21, and Sabrina, 19. - Photo courtesy of the Garcia family “A couple of years ago, when I had three at Cretin-Derham Hall, I was driving one day and I thought, ‘What was I thinking? How am I going to pay $30,000?’” she said.

So the financial aid the children receive from the Catholic Community Foundation Direct: Tuition Assistance Program “takes a lot of the stress off,” she said. “You know you are getting some kind of help.”

Despite the financial burden, providing a Catholic education for their children is a priority for Lupe and her husband, Tim Garcia, she said.

“I always tell [the children] that going to schools like that is a privilege,” she said. “They all know how hard it is to send them there. They know we expect a lot from them.”

Lupe and the Garcia children also have put in a lot of hours working at events at the Metrodome, the Xcel Energy Center and the Target Center through school volunteer programs to help pay for tuition. Tim, an over-the-road truck driver, is less able to put in the volunteer hours because of his work schedule.

Three Garcia children will be attending college this fall, while son Akoni is enrolled at Cretin-Derham Hall in St. Paul and daughter Sarah is attending St. Matthew in St. Paul, where the family is a member.
 

Filling a need

Doug Lieser, education and formation director at St. Matthew School, said that last year the school received $42,000 from the CCF Direct program to provide financial aid for 55 students.

“For our school and for many inner-city schools, the people we serve need assistance in order to receive a Catholic education,” he said. “For us, the Catholic Community Foundation is a big part of making that possible for the families.”

Besides getting scholarships to people, the aid gets the word out to other families that a good Catholic education is possible, he said.

“Our enrollment has been increasing and a big part of that has been tuition assistance,” Lieser said.

Cretin-Derham Hall High School in St. Paul received about $54,000 from the CCF Direct program last year, said principal Richard Engler. Those CCF funds were part of the $1.7 million in financial aid for students provided through named endowments and a trust fund.

Although tuition is $9,600 per student at Cretin-Derham Hall, the actual cost of education per student is $12,500, leaving a $3,000 gap in funding, Engler said. With the down economy, many donors have had to stay at the same funding level or reduce their funding. And a number of families have experienced a job loss and have had to reduce their tuition payments.

CCF funds are “extremely important” to providing access to 45 percent of the CDH student population, Engler said. “Without programs like that, our annual contributions are not keeping up to cover the financial aid.”

Having foresight

Jerome and Delores Slawik saw the wisdom of setting up the CCF Direct program back in the 1990s, when they moved funds from the Skipper Slawik Foundation Trust to the new Catholic Community Foundation.

The trust, which provided tuition scholarships to youth in Ramsey County, was set up by Slawik’s parents as a memorial to Jerome’s brother, Skipper, who was killed in a boating accident.

When Jerome’s mother died in 1989, Slawik realized that sifting through tuition aid requests would be better handled by an outside organization rather than family members. When CCF offered a way to do that, Slawik used the trust as the mustard seed for CCF Direct.

In Engler’s opinion, nothing could be better, since he believes that education is the key to a better future.

“I’m talking about an education in which one leaves with a strong sense of values, a strong sense of spirituality, with good values and good character, as well as being prepared to compete in a global society,” he said. “There is no other hope other than our youth. That is the future of our world. And what better situation than to provide an education.” 

CCF Direct: Tuition Assistance Program

» What: Permanent endowment fund established in 1997 that is managed by the Catholic Community Foundation. It provides grants for Catholic school tuition.

» Total distribution: $4.6 million since its inception.

» Last year: Provided $733,802 in grants to 1,003 students at 81 schools in the archdiocese.

» Average grant last year: $756 per student.

» Schools getting support: 79 percent.

» How to get: Families must apply for aid, which is based on financial need, through the participating Catholic school. Tuition aid is given to the student throughout the school years as long as the financial need continues and academic progress is maintained.

» How to give: Write a check payable to the Catholic Community Foundation, noting CCF Direct in the memo line. Visit www.ccf-mn.org or call (651) 389-0877.