“I hope St. Anthony’s stays around for 150 years,” said Tara Rossano, a member of the 2003 graduating class at her Eighth Street secondary school.
“What do you mean hope?” replied classmate Tanisha Sutton. “It will!”
Both girls, along with about 20 of their fellow students, worked to help their school get out the financial bind which has gripped the 52-yearold institution for the last year.
At the annual Bob Hurley Golf Tournament held at the Montclair Country Club to raise money for the school, the seniors sold raffles and helped out with the event in general.
“We broke up into five groups of two or three people,” said Sutton. “We sold the tickets as volunteers. I think my experience at St. Anthony’s has made us want to help out.”
William Booker, a member of the St. Anthony’s board of trustees, said the school, because of recent bad economic times, was forced to raise more in donations than it usually does.
“With Sept. 11 and the downturn in the economy, contributions have declined,” said Booker. “A lot of the school’s contributions come from people in the stock market.”
Stating that school tuition was never enough to cover operation expenses, Booker said St. Anthony’s usually had to raise nearly $500,000 a year in donations.
“This year we had to make repairs to parts of the school building,” Booker said. “This required more money.”
The school was looking a new fund raising goal of $800,000, Booker added. After a great deal of fund raising efforts by students, parents and alumni, St. Anthony’s has come up with $680,000 and is getting closer to completing the goal.
Sister Allan, St. Anthony’s assistant principal, said the school, which is known for its athletic program, reached out to a number of well-known alumni. These included basketball star Grant Hill of the Orlando Magic, who gave $20,000. “All in all, we got $70,000 from the athletes,” said Allan.
Added to that were $100,000 in recent pledges, said Booker.
Currently housed at 175 Eighth St. in what once a public grammar school, St. Anthony’s High School got its start as a parish high school in 1952.
“The school originally served Catholic schoolchildren from the downtown area,” Allan explained. “St. Anthony’s has seen a lot changes in the area in the last 50 years.”
Allan said that many of the older parish families moved out of the area in the past few decades, and support for the high school diminished along with it.
“The school saw the parish could no longer support the school,” Allan said.
In 1984, Allan stated, the school created a special fundraising board to help the high school meet its financial needs.
“In 1991, St. Anthony’s came to an agreement with the Archdiocese of Newark,” Allan stated. “If the school raised $150,000 by December of 1991, the diocese would subsidize the school for three years.”
At the end of the three years, St. Anthony’s became independent.
“We are no longer a parish school,” said Allan.
St. Anthony’s has reached out to embrace Jersey City beyond the confines of the Newport section.
Ready for the world
Senior Tara Rossano said, “The best thing I got from being at St. Anthony’s was that it made me ready for the world. High school can be a scary time, but the teachers here helped me through that time and got me ready for the real world.”
Rossano said she wants to be a broadcast journalist, a career goal which became clearer to her as she went through four years of school.
“When I first came here, I knew I wanted to be famous, but I didn’t know as what,” Rossano explained. “The more I became involved with the clubs at school, the more I saw what I wanted to do.”
An interest in crime has motivated Sutton, who said she wants to go into medical forensics once she is done with college.
“I know I’ll never be out of a job,” said Sutton. “Although I don’t know if I want to cut open bodies.”
Sutton said that she could improve one thing at St. Anthony’s High School, it would be to upgrade the science labs.
“I love chemistry and biology,” Sutton. “Lab work is a lot of fun.”
Improving the science labs is one of the improvements Booker would like to be made in the future to St. Anthony’s High School.
“We would like to upgrade the facilities here,” said Booker. “The school would like to work on its arts and music program.”
In addition, Booker said the school would like to make further repairs to the roof and replace the boiler in the heating system.
“Right now, the board of trustees is working on a 10-year plan for fundraising for the school,” Booker added. “We have a way to go, but we will get there.”
To make a donation or get information on St. Anthony’s High School, call (201) 653-5143.
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