Students walk to keep tuition down

A sea of yellow flowed down Jamaica Avenue, in Woodhaven, on the sunny morning of Friday, October 10.
The sea was actually about a hundred students, second through eighth grades, from the nearby St. Thomas the Apostle School clad in yellow T-shirts and navy blue sweat pants. The students were taking part in the school’s third annual Walkathon intended to raise money to help keep tuition down.
The students cheered “We are STA [St. Thomas the Apostle]!” (and occasionally “Let’s go Mets!”), nearly drowning out the noise from the J train clattering overhead. They started at 87-49 87th Street, where their school is, and ended in Forest Park, at Woodhaven Boulevard and Myrtle Avenue.
“The neighborhood sees them - they’re supporting their school,” said Victoria Capasso, president of the Home School Association at St. Thomas, whose enrollment stands at nearly 300. “We just tend to remind them that we are here.”
The amount raised at this year’s Walkathon will be known at the end of the month; last year, $13,000 was raised, said Lucy Diaz, secretary at the school.
The students organize the Walkathon to help their parents, who are required to do fundraising because the school cannot make ends meet by relying on revenue from tuition alone, which is about $3,600 per student annually, said Capasso.
“We’ll do anything we can to stay open,” she added, referring to the national trend of Catholic schools closing down due to rising operating costs and declining enrollment.
Proceeds from the Walkathon account for five percent of the school’s budget, Capasso said.
“This is really interesting for me - in other public schools we don’t do this,” said Jose Delgado, 12, who participated in the Walkathon for the first time because this is his first year at St. Thomas. “You see a lot of places, you get to know friends. I just made a friend,” said the seventh-grader.
Like the rest of the Walkathon participants, Delgado had prepared for the event a promo post card – a Word document with a paragraph in which he explained what he thinks is nice about St. Thomas.
Delgado’s post card reads: “Oh my Gosh, there are so many schools I like but the best choice is St. Thomas. There your kid will learn manners. Also, we make sure that your child passes all his classes. So choose St. Thomas.”
Woodhaven Pharmacy, at 86-22 Jamaica Avenue, is one of the local businesses donating to the school, not just during Walkathons but throughout the year. The pharmacy’s owner, Joseph Testa, of Howard Beach, said he gives the school about $1,000 annually.
Testa, who received a Catholic education from grammar school all the way through college, said Catholic schools provide a more stable environment than public ones because of their emphasis on teaching values.