St. Margaret of Scotland Families:

Next week, on Saturday, October 18th, we will have our annual Walk-A-Thon.  The nature of the Walk-A-Thon has changed both in physical location and in purpose.  In the past, the Walk-A-Thon was used as a school budget fundraiser.  We generally budgeted the Walk-A-Thon to raise $20,000 as a line item in the school budget. 

Starting this year, and continuing every year after, we are using the Walk-A-Thon as an annual way to provide funds for the Mandeville Multicultural Scholarship Fund.  For those who don’t know, the Mandeville Fund was established in the 1980s as a way to invite and support children in the community who were from minority families and non-Catholic. 

This idea of seeking out especially non-Catholic families for a Catholic Parish school was an incredibly radical and progressive idea when it was founded.  As far as I am aware, it is still the only scholarship of its kind in a Catholic parish school.  

Supporting the Mandeville Scholarship Fund is an important part of our mission to ensure that we provide a “diverse, urban, vibrant, and inclusive Catholic Community”.  In a more practical way, we use this scholarship fund every year to its capacity to make sure that we can support families who want to send their children to our school. 

One other thing that we will be doing this year at the Walk-A-Thon that is a little different is that we will be passing out buttons that have a picture of Mr. Shorter with the saying ‘Walking With Mr. Shorter”.  This is in honor of the event moving to support the Mandeville Fund and Mr. Shorter’s integral work in equity, inclusivity, and diversity at SMOS. 

I strongly encourage you to participate both in our Walk-A-Thon and in your support of the Mandeville Scholarship Fund.  As always, thank you for your continued support of our mission. 

God Bless, 

Patrick Holley