Organization co-founded by Bethel Park resident helps students attend Catholic Schools
The closing of Catholic schools hits home for Jerome Myron.
The Bethel Park resident is a member of nearby St. Germaine Parish, which once had an elementary school. And he is an alumnus of St. Elizabeth Parish High School in Baldwin Borough, another institution that is no more.
To help try to mitigate the downward enrollment trend that has caused such closures, Myron and two like-minded lay people established an organization that provides tuition aid.
“The mission of the Teach the Truth Foundation is to make sure that people aren’t excluded from attending a Catholic school because of the financial challenge,” he said. “It basically got formed with the goal that Catholic schools exist into the future. They won’t exist in the future unless parents can afford to send their kids.”
He and the other co-founders, Lisa Thompson and Lisa Killen, launched the foundation in 2014 and by the following September had raised enough money to provide assistance for six students in Allegheny and Washington counties.
“There are a couple whom we know for sure would not be in a Catholic school because they didn’t have the funds,” Myron said.
Even with parishes and the Diocese of Pittsburgh supplementing the cost of running the schools, tuition is about $4,000 per year.
“When I went to school, most of the teachers were sisters. Fast-forward to the future. There aren’t as many nuns, but the mission, the call to teach children the faith through the schools, is still there,” Myron explained. “Ultimately, the costs have gone up because of that dynamic.”
The foundation draws its name from the New Testament verse Matthew 28:19.
“Christ is the truth, and He did say to go out and teach all nations,” Myron said. “An important element of that is starting with the children.”
The mission is reinforced by Luke 18:16:
“Let the children come to Me and do not prevent them; for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”
For more information about the Teach the Truth Foundation, visit http://teachthetruthfoundation.org/.