I'm going off the beaten track with this post here, but it's a cause near to my heart. My senior year of college, I volunteered as a music teacher at St. Ignatius School in the South Bronx. I spent nine months working with the middle schoolers. We put together their musical and we even made a chorus. They're fantastic students, and I loved it.
Last week, via Facebook, I heard that St. Ignatius is closing. The school is run by New York Nativity Schools, a group of schools that offer scholarships to families so that few students need to pay the full $15,000 tuition. The schools serve poor communities, and they help offer the kids a good education and an outlet for their creative and academic goals. All of St. Ignatius' kids go on to great high schools and continue to receive advice, support, and sometimes even financial help from their alma mater. However, such big goals require big money, and recently the board has realized that there's no longer enough.
The school and its students and teachers are campaigning like crazy but are obviously struggling to find the funds to save St. Ignatius. I'd like to plug a little bit and ask for you to take the time to read the New York Daily News article, find Save St. Ignatius' Facebook page, follow @SaveSIS on Twitter, and donate. They need a few thousand dollars to even consider staying open, and they find out their fate very soon.
It's a wonderful school and a real community. St. Ignatius would leave a big hole in the South Bronx if it closed.
#saveSIS
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