9/6/2024: Time for Work (for Cristo Rey Richmond)

9/6/2024: Time for Work (for Cristo Rey Richmond)

I must begin this week’s email with a report on Moose. Many of you have asked for an update, either by email or when I have seen you in person, and Moose and I are very grateful! After I increased his medicine late last week, he hasn’t had an “episode,” so we are cautiously optimistic. His bout with meningoencephalopathy continues to be a journey!

Onto the topic of today…

Depending on the area and the school, the first day of school now ranges from early August to the first week in September. When I see the carpool line forming at the church preschool across the street from my house, I know that Labor Day has passed and even the littlest scholars are back at it.

Next week will be a different kind of first day for the students at Cristo Rey Richmond High School – their first day of work for the year. As I have written about many times before, CRR is a college preparatory high school with a unique work study model. The students go to a job one day a week, and the Corporate Work Study Partners pay a salary that helps cover the tuition. You can learn more about CRR here: https://cristoreyrichmond.org/

The Diocese will welcome eight student workers this year, and yesterday (Friday) four of them came to our office for orientation. After giving them a tour, we sat down with them to get to know them a little better. The two seniors in the group really have their act together – Maria wants to study musical theater at NYU and Zander hopes to enter the Engineering School at VCU. The younger ones have a little more time to think about college, but I was impressed when Diana told us she enjoys organizing things (can she come to my house?) and volunteers at Feed More where her cousin works. Joselin, on the other hand, said she really likes to be active and looks forward to helping with meeting set ups and in other ways that will get her moving around. Fortunately, we have a wide variety of tasks that will utilize their current talents and will help develop new ones.

The term “win-win” is overused to the point of being cliché but having Cristo Rey student workers is just that. The kids get real world job experience that gives them a leg up as they enter college and the work force. People like me and my co-workers

 get the intangible benefit of getting to know young people who may not come from our same background and who give us the gift of seeing the world through a different lens. As I told our two graduating seniors who worked with us last year, the sky’s the limit. I’m glad to be along for the ride.

God Bless,

Margaret

P.S. Cristo Rey is still looking for Corporate Work Study Partners. If you own or work at a company in the Richmond area that might be interested in participating, there is a virtual coffee happening on September 24. Let me know if you want to attend and I will get you the information.