The Cape May Fund
Schools We Support
Cornelia Connelly Center (CCC) champions girls at risk, empowering them to realize their full potential from middle school through college and beyond.
We embrace each child entering our program, walking with her on a decades-long journey of growth in mind, heart and spirit. Our challenging, joyful middle school fosters skills, resilience and compassion, while our innovative, holistic Graduate Support Program supports college aspirations and completion. These lasting relationships create an inspiring network of support that strengthens CCC, our alumnae and our community.
The success of the Academy’s unique program featuring an extended day eleven-month school year combined with a rigorous curriculum, small class sizes and mentoring support after graduating leads to achievement in high school and college and lives as productive men for others. Since its founding, 98% of Academy graduates have received a high school diploma and 88% have matriculated in college.​
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Our 9 1/2 hour school day and 11-month school year provides the time for our boys to bring their academic skills to grade level and often well beyond, preparing them for success in the most rigorous of college-preparatory high schools in the Mid-Atlantic region.
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The Academy's approach flows from the centuries-old tradition of Jesuit education centering on the care of the unique and entire person of each student - Cura Personalis. The Academy's size enables each teacher to know their students individually, creating a safe and nurturing place of learning and lifelong friendships.
A Catholic school in the Jesuit tradition, Loyola began as a concerned response to a pressing need in Detroit and its surrounding communities. With strong involvement of parents and staff at every step of the way, its graduates – truly “Men for Others” – demonstrate the level of academic, physical, social, and spiritual growth first envisioned by the school’s founders.
Loyola is a model that works. Founded in 1993, Loyola remains committed to its original mission. It is a strong community of students, parents, and staff.
All members of Loyola’s eighteen graduating classes have been accepted into at least one college or university. They are finding ongoing success in the classroom and in the workplace. They testify to the fact that Loyola is model that works prepare boys of today into “Men of the Future.”
Saint Ignatius School is a middle school located in the Hunts Point section of the South Bronx serving families in one of New York’s most impoverished neighborhoods. We educate promising children from low-income, underserved families, regardless of religious denomination. Our rigorous and disciplined academic program recognizes each student’s unique gifts, challenges, needs and potential.
St. Ignatius School is committed to:
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Creating an atmosphere where learning is exciting and valued;
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Developing an appreciation of how learning is the result of effort and commitment;
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Fostering intellectual, social, moral and spiritual growth in each student; and
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Instilling a belief in using one’s talents in service for others.
Holy Name School is a parish elementary school located in North Camden. Opened in 1927, Holy Name School is now home to about 200 students from all areas of the city of Camden. The school provides a place of safety, love, and education in an area isolated by geography, language, culture, poverty, and violence.
As part of the school system of the Diocese of Camden, Holy Name School provides a comprehensive educational program for all of its students, including instruction in religious education, mathematics, language arts, social studies, science, world languages, art, physical education, and music. Above and beyond the core educational curriculum, Holy Name School partners with Guadalupe Family Services to teach self-esteem and peace empowerment programs. Holy Name School also provides a basic skills and supplemental instruction program for classified students through NCLB, administered through the Camden City Board of Education; and eligible students receive speech therapy and instruction in English as a Second Language through Chapter 192, 193 laws. The school also provides a supervised After-School Program to serve the needs of its working parents.
In September of 2021 the Loyola Early Learning Center, founded by Bill Watters, S.J. in 2017, will become the Loyola School when it welcomes its first class of kindergartners from the preschool, as the school expands into a Pre-K through 4th grade format. The school will offer free education to 200 low-income city children in the Mount Vernon section of the city where enrollment is growing in independent schools. The school is independent from the Archdiocese of Baltimore and welcomes children from families of various religious traditions. “Our aim is to foster not only our students’ academic achievement but also their cognitive, affective, spiritual and social growth,” said Father Watters, a 90-year-old Jesuit priest who also founded Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Fells Point and St. Ignatius Loyola Academy in Federal Hill. Watters said the third Jesuit school he’s opened in Baltimore completes an “ecosystem” of Jesuit education he’s been building for underprivileged city youth for three decades. The school will grow gradually, adding one new elementary grade level each fall until 2025, when it aims to reach its target enrollment of 20 children at each preschool level and 28 in each elementary school grade level.
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Cristo Rey Jesuit is part of the growing Cristo Rey Network of high schools across the country that integrate four years of rigorous college-preparatory academics with four years of professional work experience through its Corporate Work Study program (CWS). When one of our Cape May Fund members learned about the effort to launch a Cristo Rey high school in Seattle, The Cape May Fund provided a seed gift of $5,000 to help the organizers demonstrate the school's ability to create a financial foundation to ensure long-term success. Thanks to the hard work of the dedicated leaders of this effort and the surrounding community, the Cristo Rey Jesuit opened in August 2024.
Covenant School opened its doors to young men in August of 2023. Based upon the success of the NativityMiguel model, each student is provided a tuition-free experience defined by 11 hours of academic rigor a day, 11 months a year. This extended program allows teachers additional time to teach and influence students both inside and outside of the classroom and creates a “brotherhood” among our students.
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The academic program features 15-student classes and a 7:1 student-teacher ratio. The curriculum includes language arts, reading, mathematics, science, social studies, Spanish, technology and world religions along with music, theater and art classes that culminate in performances each semester.
