Catholic schools celebrate $1M donation

LYNN – “Become men and women for others,” Swampscott resident William Mosakowski urged more than 1,000 local Catholic school students Tuesday as he celebrated a $1 million partnership with the Catholic Schools Foundation.The management consulting firm owner and his wife, Jane, donated $500,000 to St. Mary?s, St. Pius V and Sacred Heart, with the foundation matching that amount. St. Mary?s Head of School Grace Cotter Regan said the money will pay for scholarships and school improvements with the three schools working to improve their programs.?We?ll pool our resources together. My goal is we serve as a model for other schools,” Cotter Regan said.Sacred Heart eighth-grader Marnelle Garraud, St. Pius eighth-grader Alexis Schumann and St. Mary?s eighth-grader Samantha Saunders each received $1,500 scholarships Tuesday. They are attending St. Mary?s next year.Mosakowski encouraged the three students and more than 1,200 others who converged on Veterans Memorial Auditorium dressed in their multi-colored uniforms to think about Catholic education in terms of charity.?We look at you as the hope and future of our city and our country. We can?t make you work hard and help others but we ask you to hold yourselves up to become men and women for others,” Mosakowski told the students.Mosakowski is a St. Mary?s board of trustees member and is the current chairman of the school?s capital campaign.Cotter Regan said his donation to the school comes at a time when the Catholic Schools Foundation is supporting collaborations between Catholic schools.Sacred Heart Principal Joanne Ford Eagan said St. Mary?s, St. Pius and Sacred Heart educators mapped out plans to work together, she said, to “ensure high-quality Catholic education remains vital in the city.”Cotter Regan said William and Jane Mosakowski?s donation will provide money for student scholarships over the next five years. Catholic Schools Foundation money will pay for “academic enhancement, enrollment strategy” and professional training programs, Cotter Regan said.St. Mary?s junior Antonia Vinciarelli told fellow students Tuesday how her family weathered an ordeal thanks to the generosity of the St. Mary?s community. Vinciarelli?s brother, Dante, was hospitalized for a near-fatal heart blood clot in 2010 that left their family struggling financially. Fellow students, educators and parents rallied around the Vinciarellis. “It allowed me to think more critically about selflessness. St. Mary?s is a school that gives,” she said.Dante Vinciarelli has excelled in athletics at St. Mary?s and is thinking about becoming a teacher, his sister said.?I truly believe his can-do attitude came from the steadfast true prayers of the St. Mary?s community,” she added.