What a difference a few months make.
When staff, alumni and parents of students heard the news earlier this year that the Sisters of St. Joseph could no longer afford to operate Holy Family Academy, people almost panicked. Hundreds crowded into the school auditorium to find out what was going on and what they could do to stop the potential closing.
The May 6 gathering was different – more sober and bearing a firm resolve to find a way to keep the school open.
Alumni, staff, parents and others had developed a plan, organized committees, and began to journey the long road they believed would lead to the school’s salvation.
Setting up the not-for-profit organization “I Believe in HFA” in February, the group has since gone on to develop a plan that would create a $500,000 endowment they hope will convince the Sisters of St. Joseph that Holy Family can still be a viable educational institution.
“The sisters did not say they were going to close HFA,” said Regina O’Donnell Gill, HFA alumnus and spokesperson for the organization. “They just said they could no longer support it.”
This gave the group time to organize. Over the last 90 days, they did research, including talking to other schools that have faced similar situations to come up with a plan of action that would allow the school to exist after the Sisters of St. Joseph cease to support the school in June 2009.
In February, the Sisters of St. Joseph, who founded the school in 1925, said an aging population of the sisters, reduced enrollment at the school, and the continued economic demands of operating the facility required them to cease their support.
Armed with an endowment, the group can approach the sisters to show that there is a solid base upon which to support future school operations.
The fundraising effort to build the endowment, however, is separate from funds that will be needed to run the day-to-day operations of the school.
Through networking, increased enrollment and savvy marketing, the group hopes to operate the school – which costs about $1.5 million annually.
The graduating class last June was only 49 students, down from more than 100 students in the 1980s. But the school has a good academic reputation, with 100 percent of its graduates going on to college. In June, the 49 students earned more than $5 million in scholarships, Gill pointed out.
Currently, the all-girls high school has 208 students enrolled, including 58 seniors.
Initially, the Sisters of St. Joseph prohibited the school from accepting new freshmen for the academic year starting next September, but later relented partly due to the outcry from the community.
Gill said the school has already enrolled 30 freshman and three transfer students for next year.
To accomplish many of the goals, the school will see some changes in administration, including creating the post of a president to oversee development, while the principal would continue to deal with curriculum and other school operations.
This is a similar structure employed at other parochial high schools, such as Marist High School also in Bayonne.
Gill said the fundraising effort would reach out to people on every level, including alumni, people from the business community, and residents who might sponsor students to cover the $6,350 annual tuition each student must pay.
The group is developing a new promotional package to increase enrollment, emphasizing many of the attractive features the school offers, including the potential for public transportation to the site with the expected expansion of the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail Line to Eighth Street. Some shuttle services already exist to locations in Staten Island.
The current student population comes largely from Bayonne, Staten Island, Jersey City, North Bergen, Union City, Hoboken and West New York.
The group is also looking to attract more students by offering financial aid packages. The school alumni and other donors are developing scholarships for students, and various groups have already adopted some students.
Committees have been set up to handle various aspects of the fundraising drive, including parents and alumni, Gill said.
One encouraging sign is the high level of donations and pledges from the alumni outreach. More than 40 percent of alumni have responded.
But Gill said everyone who is involved in any way must seek out friends, family, business associates and others to help donate. If a company has a donation-matching fund, take advantage of it. If people know of corporation foundations, educational endowments or any other possible source of funding, they should seek out support.
“We had a lot of generous offers in February when we were first here, but we weren’t ready to accept those offers then. Now we’re ready,” Gill said. “The alumni have shown us that there’s not just a pulse, but a strong heartbeat in the HFA community.”