Cafaro Foundation gives $1 million to Ursuline High School

YOUNGSTOWN — A $1 million gift from the Cafaro Foundation will bring Ursuline High School close to completing a capital fund drive designed to provide scholarships and improve school facilities.

Members of the Cafaro family presented the donation to the Ursuline Centennial Capital Campaign today.

The gift brings the campaign within $250,000 of its goal. It’s the largest fund drive in the school’s history and is a broad-based effort reaching out to alumni, foundations and friends across the country.

The campaign, launched in early 2006, has three major goals: Building the scholarship endowment fund, renovation of facilities and expansion of the campus.

Specific project details were to be announced today.

A campaign committee of alumni and parents spent a year planning the fund drive, examining the state of the school, identifying needs and recommending strategies to meet those needs.

Many members of the Cafaro family are Ursuline High School alumni and have remained actively involved in supporting its mission.

“My Catholic education was the foundation for my success as an adult,” said Anthony Cafaro Jr., Class of ’93 and a vice president of The Cafaro Company, one of the largest privately held shopping center development and management companies in the nation. “I think it is important that Ursuline be there to help other students in the future.”

Cafaro served on the 26-member campaign committee.

Ursuline, founded in 1905, is a college preparatory high school of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Youngstown, and has an enrollment of 450 students.