Michael Morrisey is the executive director of the Catholic Education Foundation. You can reach him at (913) 647-0383 or send an email to him at: mmorrisey@archkck.org.
by Michael Morrisey
As a reminder, this is the second part of my exciting two-part series!
When I signed off in March, I left you hanging while I was on the streets talking to CEF supporters. I have heard from some of you that you lost sleep waiting for this column. No more counting sheep for you! Here it is.
It is customary in May for me to thank you for your support of the Catholic Education Foundation and for caring about our CEF families and students. I am going to do that again, but I want to share excerpts from a letter received from a CEF supporter. I think you are going to like it.
“My two children go to a lovely school in Prairie Village. It is undoubtedly a school of very lucky kids with a lot of resources. Our precious daughter just started there are about 18 months old. One of his teachers is a hard-working, single mom with a young son at one of your CEF schools. She inadvertently disclosed to me that she was having a hard time financially, and I say inadvertently because I happened to catch her at a down moment and prodded a bit more. I immediately recommended that she seek out the possible help of CEF. This was about three months ago.
“Anyhow, I had been out of town for a month for work until yesterday, and she made it a point to seek me out at pickup today. She told me that her son’s principal had written a letter of recommendation to CEF and her son was fortunate to receive a scholarship. To say she was grateful would be an understatement. She was completely ashamed that she had fallen on hard times, as her son’s Catholic education is one of the most important things in the world to her.
“I reassured her that CEF, of all organizations, understands that good parents
can fall on hard times and they appreciate that she values her son’s Catholic education above almost everything else. She thanked me, hugged me and said she planned to give money to the school and CEF when she could because they had helped her in a time of need. I was so touched that I almost couldn’t respond!
“Anyway, in this wonderful, scary and confusing thing that we call life, I call this one of the good, good days. And I wanted to share. You all are making a difference!”
Thanks to you, this school year CEF helped a record 1,363 kids attend Catholic schools in our archdiocese. You just heard about one of these kids. You truly are assisting in making a positive difference in these young people’s lives. Thank you!
