Cafaros: $1M gift repays blessings

By HAROLD GWIN

VINDICATOR EDUCATON WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — Anthony Cafaro believes his family has been blessed in many ways, particularly in the fact that many family members got their early education at Ursuline High School.

On Thursday, the Cafaro family returned that blessing in a big way, donating $1 million to the Ursuline Centennial Capital Campaign.

It’s a pleasure to be able to give something back, said Cafaro, president of The Cafaro Company and an Ursuline alumnus himself. Ursuline has been and continues to be a positive impact on the minds and values of the Wick Avenue neighborhood, he said.

“Our education here impacts what we have done as adults,” said his son, Anthony Cafaro Jr., a 1993 Ursuline graduate and a vice president of the family company, as he handed an oversized check for $1 million to Principal Patricia Fleming during a ceremony at the school.

The donation’s goal is to “enable many future generations a chance to get some of the wonderful Catholic education we have been a part of,” he said.

The guidance of the faculty “has really been so instrumental in my success,” he added. “Ursuline prepared me for life because of the diversity there. I became friends with people of other races, religions and socioeconomic backgrounds.”

Some of the most basic lessons — for example, don’t be tardy — stay with you a long time.

J.J. Cafaro, also an Ursuline alumnus and executive vice president of The Cafaro Company, said he heard a bell ringing as he walked into the school for the ceremony and felt a momentary twinge of panic.

“I thought I was late for class,” he said, smiling broadly.

The gift comes from the Cafaro Foundation and the amount of the gift was determined by family consensus, based on the role Ursuline has played in each of their lives, the elder Cafaro said, adding that Anthony Jr. spearheaded the project.

Fleming said the Cafaro name has been closely linked to Ursuline for six decades as the family has sent its children and grandchildren to the North Side school.

Ursuline is now awaiting the arrival of the third generation of Cafaro students, she quipped.

The gift is part of a $4 million capital campaign and brings the total raised thus far to more than $3.7 million, Fleming said. Alumni have the opportunity to give a gift to put the campaign over the top, she said.

Some of the money in Thursday’s gift will go to raise the Cafaro Scholarship to a principal amount of $285,000, the largest scholarship fund in Ursuline’s portfolio.

Some of it will go for major academic projects such as bringing Internet service to every room and the construction of three wireless computer labs.

Still more will be spent to renovate eight classrooms and replace outdated windows, and there will be some spent on marketing the education that Ursuline has to offer, Fleming said.

“We celebrate today the legacy of the Cafaro family working with Ursuline,” she said.

The Most Rev. George V. Murry, bishop of the Diocese of Youngstown, referred to Ursuline as “an anchor” in the city and the Mahoning Valley.

The generosity of the Cafaro family offers an example of giving and commitment for everyone to follow, he added.

gwin@vindy.com