Assuming Leadership in the Diocese of Tulsa
Current and former members of ACE Tulsa gather for Brian O'Brien's Ordination.
This year, the ACE Fellowship offered funding from the Kellogg grant to help support Catholic schools in regions with ACE alumni. The assumption was that a few areas, with high populations of graduates, would submit proposals and develop projects to help their regional Catholic schools. Not only was the Fellowship staff surprised when nine regions applied for funding, but they were especially impressed with the determination of Tulsa, a region with a small number of graduates, full of dedication and commitment.
Over the past twelve months, the Tulsa Fellowship has developed into a community of leaders. They began the year as a teacher and seminarian, planning a tutoring program, and have ended this year with a successful project coordinated by a principal and ordained priest. IMPRESSIVE! Matt Vereecke (ACE 11) will begin his position as principal at St. Pius X School and we would like to especially congratulate Fr. Brian O’Brien (ACE 5) on his ordination.
Vereecke, O’Brien and Tim O’Rourke (ACE 7) joined forces last August and wrote a proposal for the Fellowship grant. When asked about starting a Fellowship region in Tulsa, Matt explained, “We wanted to start something because we felt that ACE has had a great history in Tulsa, even if many alumni haven’t stayed in the area.” Their goal was two-fold: 1) create better communication among the schools within the diocese, and offer service in a way that allows students, faculty and parents to interact and 2) continue to spread and promote ACE and Notre Dame through intentional service and spirituality targeted at Catholic schools.
To that end, the ACE alumni in Tulsa created a tutoring program that brought students from the Catholic high school into the local grade schools; their one requirement being that the students could not serve at a school or parish they had previously attended. “Students quickly learned that the school environments, although different, were not any worse or stranger than those they had previously known,” replied Vereecke. These interactions helped to break down some of the pre-conceived notions that many people had about other schools and parishes.
At the end of their project, the Tulsa Fellowship had 8-12 tutors working at least one day a week, primarily at the four poorest Catholic schools in Tulsa. “We found that our Fellowship was able to grow very quickly because we not only had high school students who wanted to be a part of something bigger, but we also had the support and expertise of administrators at the various schools,” Matt explained.
We would like to congratulate the Tulsa Fellowship, not only on their well-developed tutoring program, but also on the new positions of leadership they are assuming in the Diocese of Tulsa.
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