submitted by Beth Murphy
Scecina Memorial High School
Scecina Memorial High School recently launched a $6 million capital campaign called “Our Faith, Our Journey, Our Time.”
The capital campaign plans call for facilities upgrades, including a new entrance and athletic fields, and endowments for academic excellence and facilities maintenance. It is the first capital campaign of its kind for the school, which opened in 1953.
Scecina is an Archdiocese of Indianapolis Catholic high school on the Eastside of the city. Current enrollment is 408 students.
“We have launched the ‘Our Faith, Our Journey, Our Time’ capital campaign after years of progress at Scecina,” said Scecina President Joe Therber.
“The vision of this ambitious capital campaign will build upon the past decade of success and advance Scecina’s reach and impact in young people’s lives and in our Eastside community. We believe now is our time to move forward with these projects,” he said.
Over the past decade, he said, Scecina has added and sustained innovative academic programs; renovated classrooms and the library, guidance center, gymnasium, hallways, rotunda, and cafeteria; and added a multimedia collaboration room.
At a capital campaign kickoff party on Sept. 26 at Scecina, President Therber announced that $4.5 million already has been raised or pledged toward the capital campaign. The school also has started construction of one of the projects — a new weight room inside the school building.
He said these improvements will benefit the Eastside because the school is an anchor institution in the community.
“Scecina enhances quality of life, property values, and opportunities for residents to live, work, play, and pray on the Eastside,” he said. “According to data provided by the National Catholic Education Association, when urban Catholic schools are alive and vibrant, neighborhoods flourish, and the entire community improves in all areas.”
The six priorities of Scecina’s “Our Faith, Our Journey, Our Time” capital campaign are:
• Academic Excellence Fund (Goal $500,000): The Academic Excellence Fund will help Scecina recruit and retain excellent teachers by offering higher faculty salaries; initiate and sustain innovative academic programs; and provide need-based tuition assistance to the community’s most financially disadvantaged students.
• New chapel (Goal $380,000): A chapel inside the school will be a visible sign of Scecina’s Catholic-Christian heritage and mission. It will allow for individual and class reflection and prayer and class visits to learn about liturgy, traditions and symbols. It also will be available for other groups, from within and outside of Scecina.
• Main entrance (Goal $960,000): Scecina plans a major transformation of the front entrance, which has stayed the same since the school opened in 1953. The new entrance will include visitor-friendly parking; modern signage; modern safety and security features; accessibility to the main hall in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act; visual symbols of Catholic-Christian identity; and student gathering areas and landscaping.
• Weight-training room (Goal $420,000): To improve the safety and security for Scecina students and community groups, Scecina is relocating the weight-training room from a building on the eastside of campus to the inside of the school building. It also plans to modernize equipment for students, athletes and future Crusaders from community partners such as Catholic Youth Organization teams and other organizations.
• New athletic and activity fields (Goal $2.5 million): The proposed renovations include a new artificial turf football field; a field for athletics and student activities on the west side of campus; a 1/3-mile running and walking course around the new fields; and a new and improved baseball field either on campus or at a nearby Eastside location.
• Facilities Endowment (Goal $360,000): Scecina plans to expand its Facilities Endowment to help care for and ensure the safety of current and new facilities in perpetuity.
The campaign is being guided by a 100+-member leadership team, along with President Therber and the Scecina Board of Directors.
The campaign priorities were decided after a deliberate process of Input and Listening sessions with students, alumni, parents, and staff, a review of the school’s educational and facility needs, a Financial Feasibility Study, and approval by the Scecina Board of Directors and the Archdiocese of Indianapolis administration.
