Students of Stewardship
Ten years have passed since my parents, Will and Elizabeth Franklin, decided to send my older brother, Aidan ’20, to Strake Jesuit in 2016, and I followed just two years later. Since we first applied to Strake Jesuit, it has never been just a school to us. It is a place where my parents saw my brother and me challenged academically, grounded in our faith, and most importantly, taught to carry ourselves with purpose.
Since 1960, Strake Jesuit has offered students a holistic education that helps form what it calls the “Grad at Grad.” My parents saw that as an important part of our development before college and the real world, and it remains one of the many benefits of attending Strake Jesuit to this day.
Within the Grad at Grad, two things stood out to my parents about the school.
“We began to appreciate that boys and girls mature and are educated differently, and so we really valued a boys school, in a place where the unique way that boys grow is kind of respected,” Will said. “The second thing … is we wanted to ensure that our faith was passed on.”
My parents had their own reasons for wanting us to attend Strake Jesuit, but they also understood that it was a choice for my brother and me. In the end, we chose to become part of a school community that was welcoming and gave us countless opportunities.
“I think that being able to invest and handpick your faculty allows you to bring in people who really care about the future of the kids that they're interacting with. I think we always had genuine interactions, and you could really tell that was something that was pretty fundamental to those people's lives,” Aidan said. “Through freshman retreat and all these other extracurricular activities, you could really tell that they were putting in that extra effort to help us develop, not just academically, but also emotionally, and really cared about our emotional and spiritual qualities as well. … From the Jesuit perspective, that just goes back to the emphasis on caring about the whole person, and really emphasizing growing these qualities through both academics, which is really strong in the Jesuit tradition, but also that extracurricular stuff as well.”
My experience at Strake Jesuit was similar. It was four years defined by incredible teachers like Mrs. Amy Doiron, Mr. Jason Brown, and Mr. Jorge Roque, S.J., extracurricular activities such as managing the varsity soccer team during my junior and senior years, and experiencing all of the many retreats that students attend during their time at Strake Jesuit. And through it all, I became part of a community that gave me some of my best friends to this day, people I speak with on a regular basis who have had an incredible impact on who I was in high school and who I am today.
For me, Jesuit education is just as much about what you learn about inside the classroom as it is what you learn about outside. It helps you build better relationships with those around you and understand our call to serve our communities, and Strake Jesuit’s Men for Others motto carried me through high school and now through college.
Strake Jesuit’s motto didn't just resonate with my brother and me, however; my parents also believe in it, and it is the reason why they have continued to support our school even after my brother and I’s time.
“We had a liquidity event that enabled our family to do a lot with the resources that we've been given. And as we thought about that and talked about that as a family, we decided we want to support a number of things, but we really want to support things that I think the Lord would be proud of us supporting,” Will said. “We've talked about all the many reasons that we love Strake Jesuit. But the other element is that there are a lot of other people who love it. And the great thing about the Jesuits is they want anybody to experience their education. And so by providing capital that can help fund scholarships, that can help recruit and maintain great professors. … You can bring those elements together with people who want to be there and have the ability to be there, then you get a better community. And we wanted to help enable that in a more material way.”
My family's decision to give was not simply about giving back in the present, but about creating something lasting from our family and setting an example for my brother and me so that we can continue to support Strake Jesuit as much as we can.
“I think as a parent you want to leave a legacy for your children,” Elizabeth said. “We wanted [Aidan and Josh] to be part of this so that [they] could be part of the legacy too, not just to see our example, but to be part of it so that one day, [they] can follow suit with [their] resources and support the organizations that matter to [them] and that support their values. We hope that that'll be Strake Jesuit in [their] future, too.”
So, just as Strake Jesuit invited us to be part of its community nearly a decade ago, we wanted others to be able to join it too, free of the financial burdens that may exist, so that Strake Jesuit can continue to change the lives of the people who go through it. It is a place that has blessed so many families and created so many well-rounded young men, and we wanted to be sure that it can continue to fulfill its mission of creating Men for Others now and well beyond our time.
Back
Since 1960, Strake Jesuit has offered students a holistic education that helps form what it calls the “Grad at Grad.” My parents saw that as an important part of our development before college and the real world, and it remains one of the many benefits of attending Strake Jesuit to this day.
Within the Grad at Grad, two things stood out to my parents about the school.
“We began to appreciate that boys and girls mature and are educated differently, and so we really valued a boys school, in a place where the unique way that boys grow is kind of respected,” Will said. “The second thing … is we wanted to ensure that our faith was passed on.”
My parents had their own reasons for wanting us to attend Strake Jesuit, but they also understood that it was a choice for my brother and me. In the end, we chose to become part of a school community that was welcoming and gave us countless opportunities.
“I think that being able to invest and handpick your faculty allows you to bring in people who really care about the future of the kids that they're interacting with. I think we always had genuine interactions, and you could really tell that was something that was pretty fundamental to those people's lives,” Aidan said. “Through freshman retreat and all these other extracurricular activities, you could really tell that they were putting in that extra effort to help us develop, not just academically, but also emotionally, and really cared about our emotional and spiritual qualities as well. … From the Jesuit perspective, that just goes back to the emphasis on caring about the whole person, and really emphasizing growing these qualities through both academics, which is really strong in the Jesuit tradition, but also that extracurricular stuff as well.”
My experience at Strake Jesuit was similar. It was four years defined by incredible teachers like Mrs. Amy Doiron, Mr. Jason Brown, and Mr. Jorge Roque, S.J., extracurricular activities such as managing the varsity soccer team during my junior and senior years, and experiencing all of the many retreats that students attend during their time at Strake Jesuit. And through it all, I became part of a community that gave me some of my best friends to this day, people I speak with on a regular basis who have had an incredible impact on who I was in high school and who I am today.
For me, Jesuit education is just as much about what you learn about inside the classroom as it is what you learn about outside. It helps you build better relationships with those around you and understand our call to serve our communities, and Strake Jesuit’s Men for Others motto carried me through high school and now through college.
Strake Jesuit’s motto didn't just resonate with my brother and me, however; my parents also believe in it, and it is the reason why they have continued to support our school even after my brother and I’s time.
“We had a liquidity event that enabled our family to do a lot with the resources that we've been given. And as we thought about that and talked about that as a family, we decided we want to support a number of things, but we really want to support things that I think the Lord would be proud of us supporting,” Will said. “We've talked about all the many reasons that we love Strake Jesuit. But the other element is that there are a lot of other people who love it. And the great thing about the Jesuits is they want anybody to experience their education. And so by providing capital that can help fund scholarships, that can help recruit and maintain great professors. … You can bring those elements together with people who want to be there and have the ability to be there, then you get a better community. And we wanted to help enable that in a more material way.”
My family's decision to give was not simply about giving back in the present, but about creating something lasting from our family and setting an example for my brother and me so that we can continue to support Strake Jesuit as much as we can.
“I think as a parent you want to leave a legacy for your children,” Elizabeth said. “We wanted [Aidan and Josh] to be part of this so that [they] could be part of the legacy too, not just to see our example, but to be part of it so that one day, [they] can follow suit with [their] resources and support the organizations that matter to [them] and that support their values. We hope that that'll be Strake Jesuit in [their] future, too.”
So, just as Strake Jesuit invited us to be part of its community nearly a decade ago, we wanted others to be able to join it too, free of the financial burdens that may exist, so that Strake Jesuit can continue to change the lives of the people who go through it. It is a place that has blessed so many families and created so many well-rounded young men, and we wanted to be sure that it can continue to fulfill its mission of creating Men for Others now and well beyond our time.
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