The following comes from a Sept. 12 story in Catholic San Francisco.
More than 100 students returned to St. Rita School, Fairfax, after a six-month fundraising campaign by the parish community raised enough money to keep the 56-year-old K-8 school open for another year.
The campaign, started after pastor Father Kenneth Weare announced last February that the school would close because of low enrollment and rising costs, collected nearly $700,000 – including individual gifts from anonymous donors of $200,000 and $250,000.
The school was able to pay off a deficit from the 2012-13 school year and finance operations for 2013-14.
“The families are thrilled,” said Liz Marks, a St. Rita school board member and parent of an eighth grader. “There’s a renewed excitement about the future of the school that I think even the kids are caught up in.”
Father Weare and new principal John Black are reaching out to the community that rallied to save the school to explore ways of creating a competitive niche for St. Rita, which is in a relatively remote location of Marin County….
To read entire story, click here.
About one hundred children in a school that runs from kindergarden through 8th grade?
How in the world can they pay the salaries of the teachers?
There is a Cathlic school next door in San Rafael with only about 150 students so wouldn’t it be better right now to combine the two schools and therefore have one, big, strong successful school rather than two separate struggling schools???
It’s a fact of life that threatening to close a Catholic school is the best fundraising tactic there is. Scooping up $700k in just six months to keep St. Rita’s open is no small thing, even in Marin County, the land of the well-to-do. So if your school or church is having financial difficulties, just announce it’s closing and watch the dollars flow in. In the Church, good news travels fast, but bad news travels faster.
G.C., that is tooooooooooo funny — and probably right on target!