By Gretchen Keiser, Staff Writer

ATLANTA—God’s providence brought forward a $240,000 donation to Our Lady of Lourdes School May 21 given by a Marietta couple who learned of the need that morning.

The donation from the Catholic couple, who asked to remain anonymous, gave supporters of the school enough to go over a $300,000 goal they had to reach that day.

“When they say our God is an on-time God, he was truly on time,” said Mary Avery, school secretary and a member of the task force working to keep the school open.

School parents, parishioners and many individual donors had already contributed over $60,000 to a fund for the 2001-02 school year.

The combined funds keep hope alive that the school can continue in operation.

“We are going to move ahead to the next hurdle to see if we can continue to build on the miracle that has happened,” said Father John Adamski, pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes.

The next hurdle will be to raise an additional $500,000 by mid-June, to continue to register students for the coming year and to obtain faculty commitments.

Fifty-three students are now registered for next year at the historic school on Boulevard in Atlanta, according to Sister Loretta McCarthy, SBS, another task force member. Another 50 students need to be registered to meet a parish goal regarding enrollment numbers and tuition income.

Father Adamski said the parish is also putting additional organizational pieces into the process at this point and providing extended financial oversight.

The task force has been working with the parish finance council and parish pastoral council. When the task force brought their recommendation to the council following the unexpected gift, the pastoral council decision was “unanimous that we should go ahead to the next hurdle,” Father Adamski said.

The next full meeting will be held on June 18, he said.

Events appeared to be moving against the school continuing until the last moment. According to Sister McCarthy, the couple heard a radio report the morning of May 21 about Our Lady of Lourdes plight. Quiet supporters of the school in the past, they were unaware that the archdiocese had decided in April to cease funding Our Lady of Lourde’s and St. Anthony’s schools after this year and to support a regional school, St. Peter Claver, at Sts. Peter and Paul Parish, Decatur.

The couple’s generosity was inspired by their faith, Sister McCarthy said. They first called the school and then spoke to Father Adamski.

“They talked about their belief in the importance of Catholic education and that being lived out in Our Lady of Lourdes School, that Catholic education needs to happen in this kind of setting and this kind of environment,” Father Adamski said.

They would like values-based education and faith-based education to be more available, he said, both to Catholic and to non-Catholic families.

“They felt God was moving them” to make the needed donation, he said. “Now we need to build on this.”

Avery, whose daughter attends Our Lady of Lourdes, said, “There were tears of joy that flowed in that church last night. There were praises given to God. (The donor) is a very humble man and wants to remain anonymous. He expressed that it is because of God’s blessing that he is able to do this. God is always good.”

Sister McCarthy, a member of the order founded by St. Katharine Drexel and a former principal at Our Lady of Lourdes, said, “It was (the couple’s) deep sense God really wanted them to do this.”

“They are a remarkable couple. They are not a wealthy couple. They are a couple of deep faith . . . Their faith helps them to see their way to sharing what they don’t need.”

Persuaded to come to the meeting of the task force that evening, they spoke to the people who have been working to keep Our Lady of Lourdes open. Archbishop John F. Donoghue said the schools could continue if they became self-funded.

“The tears were definitely flowing when the couple got up and said what they said. It was such a relief and a release,” Sister McCarthy said.

Members of the task force, particularly the parents, have been working extremely hard to raise funds and make any contacts possible to keep the school open, she said.

Jerralyn Winston, a parent of three children at the school, who has seen hundreds of smaller donations come in from Catholics and non-Catholics in the North Georgia community in the last month, said the process has been a gift to her and, she believes, to many others.

“Each person had that little faith the size of a mustard seed to send something in, and that moved mountains,” she said.

“The Catholic community has just been amazing and I would not have known that had all these events not taken place. I appreciate also the archbishop intentionally making the decision not to close the schools. I have to say he actually offered an opportunity here for us because this has awakened many that were asleep, strengthened people’s faith in themselves and in the Catholic community. It has been amazing to witness.”

Avery said they will now approach a number of corporations requesting that they each match the $60-$70,000 in contributions that parents have already raised. The additional 30 days gained by the May 21 donation is critical to accomplish that, Sister McCarthy observed.

“I was humbled by God’s movement in it all. We have been doing a lot of work contacting people. This (last-minute donation) just seemed to be totally God,” she said.

The two documented miracles in the cause for canonization of the school’s foundress, St. Katharine Drexel, were both miracles of hearing being restored in young children, she said.

“When the couple said they heard (the report on Lourdes) on the radio, one of our teachers said, ‘That’s Katharine.’”