St. Bernard relies on its alumni
Catholic school ramps up annual campaign for donations, uses social media as an option
— St. Bernard School can’t survive without more donations from alumni.
That’s what officials from the Catholic school said Wednesday after releasing a video on its Facebook page asking for donations from former students, which other than tuition, is the school’s main source of revenue.
While a lease agreement with the Mohegan Tribe — which purchased the school building and land for $6.5 million last summer — guarantees the school can operate for the next 20 years, Headmaster Don Macrino said Wednesday it can’t fund its $5.2 million annual budget without more contributions from its approximately 11,000 alumni.
As donations fluctuate year to year, approximately 330 alumni, or roughly 3 percent of the school’s graduates, donate, said Dana Williams, the school’s director of advancement. She said 80% of those donations are $500 or less. She said the school has received some donations of $25,000 to $100,000 over the years, but it doesn’t happen every year.
“So we’re really trying to get the message out that we’re here to stay, but we can’t do that without their support,” she added.
As a private school for grades 6 to 12, St. Bernard does not receive any federal or state funding. It does receive a few grants for special education students through the town of Montville.
Other sources of funding include $315,000 a year from the Margaret Twomey Reagan/Pfister Charitable Trust Scholarship Fund, $220,000 a year from the Ray H. and Pauline Sullivan Foundation, about $65,000 a year from the James A. Greenleaf Jr. Memorial Scholarship Fund — which
provides scholarships to students who apply — $75,000 a year from the Norwich Diocese and $25,000 to $30,000 a year from several of its parishes — which designate two collections a year that go specifically to the school.
She said the school has a “very small endowment,” of about $100,000.
Depending on tuition
The rest of the school’s funding comes from the $14,400 annual tuition paid by its 400 students, 62% of whom receive some level of financial aid from the school. Next year, tuition will go up to $14,700, Williams said.
“Each year is very, very different,” Macrino said. “The private schools, regardless of who they are, or where they are, are always on the edge. And most of us, unless you have a really deep foundation that’s backing you, depend solely upon tuition, as we do.”
“For the past many, many, many years, even in the heyday of the school, tuition is always questionable — it’s up and down,” he said.
“So, we’re really looking for more alumni to give each year so that it’s something we can depend on every year, as part of our revenue,” Williams added.
Three factors have contributed to the decline in the school’s tuition revenue in a short span, Macrino said.
He said U.S. relations with China, the COVID-19 pandemic and uncertainty over who was going to purchase the school as the Diocese of Norwich sold the property as part of a bankruptcy plan made it difficult to attract new students.
China, COVID and bankruptcy
Macrino said the number of international students, who mostly come from mainland China, has declined in recent years. Williams said the school currently has 12 international students compared to as many as 46 in past years.
“When those relationships began to sort of chill between the U.S. and China, it was somewhat difficult for students to get a visa,” he said.
Macrino said those international students are coming back now.
He added that when the COVID-19 pandemic began in March 2020, student visas were not being issued, which meant no additional students from China were able to attend school in the U.S. for two years, or it was far more difficult for them to do so.
“So that further took a chunk out of our tuition income,” he added.
In July 2021, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Norwich filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy as 60 men filed lawsuits saying they were sexually assaulted as minors at the diocesan-run Mount Saint John School in Deep River. During the bankruptcy process, a total of 142 people have now filed claims they they were assaulted by priests and other diocesan members.
The diocese had to liquidate some of its assets, including Saint Bernard. It announced the sale of the school in early 2023 and that there was an unidentified buyer interested. School officials hoped the eventual buyer would lease the property to the school, but nothing was guaranteed.
Macrino said Tuesday the uncertainty led to a decrease in alumni donations as they did not want to donate if they didn’t know what would happen to the school.
“Younger students couldn’t take a chance and had to go to other private schools,” he said.
Meanwhile, the school’s enrollment has steadily increased since 2014.
“As a Catholic school that believes in charity, in the sense of the word, we do our best not to turn anyone away as a result of finances,” Macrino said. “Now, we can’t do that carte blanche, because you have to be able to pay the bills.”
Alumni reaction
“This school has been a beloved school in southern New England since 1956, and you ask any of the alumni — they’re still all in love with the place,” Macrino said.
Kyle Klewin, a class of 1995 alumnus, said Wednesday the school has a strong alumni community who share a kinship that extends beyond their class. In early 2023, with rumors swirling over whether the property’s unknown prospective buyer would let the school use its building, he and other alumni organized Saint’s Country LLC and proposed to purchase the school for $6.2 million.
The alumni can be relied on, he said. It’s just a matter of reaching them better.
“Which I think they’re doing now with this,” he added.
Class of 1986 alumni Tony Lowe said the the school made an immeasurable impact on him. Lowe, a business owner, shared stories of strong bonds between classmates, and attributed his life’s success and keeping him on a good path largely to the school.
“It’s a special place,” he said, adding he talks to other alumni who say the same thing. “And I cannot begin to tell you how special it is. I cannot put that into words.”
Though happy to have the school where it is, he said if Saint Bernard were located in a wealthier part of the state, it would not have to rely as heavily on alumni donations.
“This is the reality of it: southeastern Connecticut is the ugly stepchild of Connecticut. We don’t have any major metropolitan cities where people are making millions of dollars. We are factory workers, we are service providers, and we typically do not have that level of wealth in this region of the state,” he said.
“If we had that same level of wealth that they do say, in Middletown, that they do at Xavier, then we would never be having this conversation,” Lowe added.
Though the school holds an alumni fundraising campaign annually, Macrino said the Facebook video has already “generated more interest than it has in a long time.”
Williams said as a result, the school has seen some first-time donors and the return of others who haven’t donated since 2014, when the school began a campaign known as the Hendricks Challenge. That’s when Class of 1977 alumna Maureen Hendricks pledged to give $1 million to the school in hopes the diocese and other alumni would each make a matching donation of $1 million.
From that campaign, the school ended up raising $3 million, Macrino said, which it used for projects such as renovating the gymnasium, auditorium and bathrooms.
“It really brought it into the 20th century,” he said. “We really refreshed the place.”
Rebuilding for the future
“Fortunately, since that time, we’ve begun to rebuild,” Macrino said.
“But as we’re trying to rebuild our population, and offer this type of an education to the type of kids who want it, we need help from our alumni,” he added.
Macrino said he realizes that as the number of students goes up, so too will the school’s costs to operate.
Saint Bernard eventually wants to start using alumni donations to build its endowment, but is unable to do that right now because it needs to cover operating funds, Williams said. And if it accepts more students right now, then it will have to hire more staff to accommodate them, further increasing costs.
“The purpose of this is to get the alumni invested in the school so we can be here for a long time,” she said.