The need keeps growing, and the Augustine Educational Foundation is happy to find different ways to fill it.
The need: tuition assistance for Hawaii Catholic school students. This year, more than 1,100 applications have come in already for the 2013-2014 school year, according to Sue Ferandin, the foundation’s executive director.
As of July 24, the foundation has distributed $488,600 to 390 students. More scholarships are expected in September.
The financial help goes to students from kindergarten through grade 12 in 32 schools on Oahu, the Big Island, Kauai and Maui.
Besides distributing its own scholarships, the Augustine Foundation also helps a number of schools manage their own endowment funds. These include St. Catherine School, Kapaa; St. Theresa School, Kekaha; St. Joseph Schools, Hilo; St. Anthony Grade School, Maui; Holy Family Catholic Academy, Honolulu; St. Anthony School, Kalihi; and St. Anthony Junior-Senior High School, Maui.
The foundation also manages funds for parishes without schools that award Catholic school scholarships to their student parishioners. These include St. Augustine, Waikiki; Sts. Peter and Paul, Honolulu; Star of the Sea, Honolulu; and St. George, Waimanalo.
The Augustine Foundation also has special named scholarship funds with the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, Conrad Hilton Foundation, First Hawaiian Foundation and the Shane Victorino Foundation.
It also administers special funds named for the late Bishop Joseph A. Ferrario, the late Father Daniel J. Dever and former Catholic schools superintendent Carmen Himenes, and several named donor funds for specific schools such as Saint Louis, Sacred Hearts Academy and St. Ann’s Model Schools.
This year, Ferandin said, investment earnings from an endowment established with money from the diocese’s With Grateful Hearts capital campaign will generate $40,000 for scholarships.
Maui has its own Catholic Student Tuition Assistance Fund for that island’s schools generated by monthly parish collections. The Augustine Foundation also administers this fund which now totals $53,500 and which will be given out in full in September.
The foundation this year also funded 16 teacher and curriculum development grants totaling $43,000. These paid for specialized technology and science training and other events at schools including Holy Family, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Our Lady of Good Counsel, St. Elizabeth, Sacred Hearts Academy, St. Anthony Junior-Senior High School and St. John Vianney.
