In four years at Catholic High School, Virginia Beach, senior Aarya Rajashekara, SCA president, has seen his school transformed.
“[Catholic High School] is not only expanding physically, but expanding the intellectual breadth of knowledge the school is capable of facilitating,” said Rajashekara. “That’s possible because of donations.”
The iGiveCatholic program, which our diocese has utilized for six years, is the primary fundraising arm of 52 diocesan entities, from schools to parishes to specific programs like Diocesan Work Camp. All but one of our 23 diocesan schools use the platform, including Catholic High School.
Each year, the amount of money raised via iGiveCatholic – and the number of donors – has increased.
“iGiveCatholic is a peer-to-peer online fundraising platform, which is the most efficient way to raise funds,” said Maggie Keenan, director of planned giving for the Catholic Community Foundation in our diocese. “The iGiveCatholic website is a template, and schools or parishes can easily create and modify a fundraising website using the platform.”
That means that donations made to a school or parish via iGiveCatholic directly benefit that school or parish community. The relatively uniform format makes giving money simple – anyone who wishes to make a donation can navigate to their entity of choice from the diocesan iGiveCatholic website.
This year, the giving season begins on Nov. 18, culminating at midnight on Giving Day, Dec. 3, the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving. Offline donations – checks mailed to the school, for example – are accepted until Dec. 10.
Last year, $819,640 was raised across all entities through iGiveCatholic, including $275,603 by Catholic High School.
Rajashekara said that, in the case of donors to Catholic High School, “All the money given will truly benefit their communities as they grow and will have visible benefits for their future and ours. No matter if the donation is small or big, all the money is directed towards our youth, and our youth will be the future leaders of tomorrow’s world.”
Improvements and scholarships
As president of the Catholic High School theater department and a familiar face in the school’s plays and musicals, Rajashekara said that a push to invest in the arts in 2021-22 made a big impact on the theater program.
“We improved stage lighting – we have a great tech crew, and they got these brand-new amenities … to build that depth in the theater we couldn’t build with the normal lighting,” said Rajashekara. “Spotlights, different colors, flashes. We could develop a different immersive environment because of the advancements. It’s also safer; the previous lights had safety hazards.”
In 2022-23, said Rajashekara, he saw major improvements made in the sciences.
“I’ve taken every science class at Catholic High School, and it’s remarkable the access we have to resources because of the iGiveCatholic foundation,” said Rajashekara, who intends to enter a pre-med program in college next year.
“In AP Physics particularly, the laboratory work that we’re able to do with the simulated technology that we’re given is leaps and bounds beyond my peers in other schools,” said Rajashekara.
“We have motion-sensor carts; we have probe sensors; we’re allowed to visualize circuitry through the circuit boards we have, all made possible by iGiveCatholic,” he continued. “We also have two full-fledged labs in our biology and chemistry work rooms that we can do titrations and other nuanced experiments with, which we wouldn’t be able to do without the funding.”
In 2023-24, Catholic High School focused on the TowneBank Athletic Pavilion, another project made possible by iGiveCatholic. About 80% of students at Catholic High School participate in school sports, and the pavilion is in use throughout the year. The 2,300-square-foot pavilion broke ground on Aug. 18, 2023, and was blessed by Bishop Barry C. Knestout on April 17, 2024.
“The athletic pavilion is multipurpose; not only is it very modern with really good lockers and restrooms, it’s also an extra classroom,” said Rajashekara. “Recently, in AP Environmental, we developed solar ovens, and we moved out to the pavilion and worked with solar ovens and heat energy transfer.”
iGiveCatholic is also responsible for scholarships to Catholic High School.
Lee Murphy, who is chairman of the Catholic High School Foundation Board, has been a donor since 1998. He noted that the scholarship fund has grown tremendously in the past two decades.
“Since 1998, I’ve seen an upgrade to facilities in everything from academic to athletic, and we’ve been able to increase the amount of money that we can give to the scholarship fund,” said Murphy. “It’s made it affordable. For people for whom it’s a reach to go there, it’s become more obtainable.”
“Our school in general has become a more popular place to go,” Murphy continued. “I was chairman of the Advisory Board for six years, and I know one of our biggest challenges was, ‘How do we get enrollment up? How do we keep it stabilized?’ And now we have a waiting list.”
“If you have a waiting list, that means more people want to come, so we talk about how we can increase enrollment,” Murphy added. “Always in the back of our minds, we’re thinking about adding classroom space and faculty.”
Though plans to physically construct new classrooms are still nebulous, the goal of the 2024-25 campaign is to better utilize available space.
“Our enrollment is at an all-time high, so we’ve had to be very creative about using spaces,” said Marie Finch, chair of the Catholic High School Development/Fundraising Committee.
“For example, our band and chorus room is used in [the first period], and then not again during the day,” said Finch. “So that room also doubles as a classroom during the day, because we are re-purposing rooms for classrooms. That means we need audio-visual equipment, whiteboards, desks.”
Finch said that 3D printers at the school and Chromebooks for all the students are another priority.
Building alumni relationships, Finch added, is an essential part of Catholic High School’s fundraising strategy.
“We have homecoming every year,” she said. “We have alumni soccer games. We have a golf tournament, alumni basketball games, a quarterly magazine that goes out with updates on the school.”
“As this relationship goes forward, knowing that the money you give is directly benefiting students or faculty is really valuable,” said Finch. “There’s transparency in how the money is used, fiscal responsibility, and the knowledge that a scholarship dollar will help a child who otherwise couldn’t attend.”
More donations, resources
As SCA president, Rajashekara said it’s his responsibility to act as a liaison between the student body and faculty on student needs.
“The SCA bridges the gap between the student body and the faculty,” he said. “Right now, I’m not hearing too many specific desires [from students] – it’s more that we’re getting an increased pressure on resources because of our 21% increase in enrollment. We want an increase in resources so that enrollment is not limited.”
“I don’t think the importance of a Catholic education can be overstated, especially these days,” said Finch. “To have a foundation where one knows that there is a loving God who has created them and who has died for them, I think it makes all the difference in how you’re able to approach the world.”
“Part of what makes the college preparatory aspect of Catholic High School so strong is because we are able to have these facilities and wonderful faculty,” said Rajashekara. “All of us are very grateful for iGiveCatholic.”
Learn more and donate to iGiveCatholic.