The Catholic School Leaders Podcast

 The one thing this school community has taught me is to dream bigger. And it's a reminder that goes off every single morning on my phone. I have a reminder that goes off at 7 45 that says Dream bigger. Because when I started this job and I had some ideas that seemed. A little out of the box, perhaps every one of those that I worked to do had a bigger turnout than I thought it even would and could.

So I said right away, this community is showing me that I can keep dreaming bigger, that each of us can keep dreaming bigger. So I have that reminder daily that whatever I think we can do, we can probably go a little bigger than that.

Welcome back to another episode of the Catholic School Leaders Podcast. I'm your host, John Maha, the founder of Elementary Advancement Solutions, where the goal is to make Catholic school growth seem elementary. If you do the podcast, this show is all about helping Catholic school leaders strengthen their enrollment, strengthen their advancement, and really create that long-term sustainability for their Catholic schools.

If you find this episode helpful, hey, I'd love it if you would subscribe or just pass this on to other Catholic school leaders in your network who care deeply about the mission of Catholic education.

Today's episode is a special one because we are gonna be talking with Tara Nelson, the advancement director and enrollment director of Parkersburg Catholic Schools. You're gonna hear how they have gone from a school that was struggling, struggling with their enrollment, struggling with their advancement, and wondering if they were even gonna remain open to a school that is creating sustainability, growth, and excitement.

A real vision, not just for now, but for the next 25 years.

We talk all the time on this podcast about helping school leaders boost their enrollment advancement and just creating a school culture that is thriving. And this is a school that I've had a front row seat to work with and watch.

Do just that over the past two years. This is an inspiring story. It's motivating. And it shows you what happens when you dream big. A big thank you to Tara for sharing the story of the amazing work happening in Parkersburg, West Virginia. Get your pencil and paper ready because this can give any school permission to dream bigger than you ever thought possible.

Enjoy the episode.

 Tara, it's great to see you. How are you today? I'm good. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. And it's a big day here because your school on the day that we're recording this is, there's a lot going on at your school today. It is. It is Advancement director Appreciation day at your school and also maybe another special day for you as well with your birthday.

So we're recording this on a very, like a lot going on at your school today. There is, there is. I've been a little surprised, surprising They're spoiling you, right? Yes. Indeed. So this is a really cool episode today because a lot of times with people that we're recording, maybe we've just met each other or we're kinda learning what the other one does and it's really conversation.

And you and I, we've known each other for a little while here now because what we've been working together over the past couple of years. And so this is a really cool episode that we get to record today for sure. It is. So. Let's, first and foremost, this is, there's a lot to un unpack here today in this episode, and so we really wanna focus on your school and what we're gonna refer to today with Parkersburg Catholic Schools, there are two schools, but they really fall under one umbrella.

There's an elementary school and then there's a high school within this. But I think we generally tend to just refer to it as Parkersburg Catholic schools. Two different schools, two different principals, two different but really one school community that's come together. So when we're talking about that today, that's really what it's all about.

So tell us a little bit about the Parkersburg Catholic schools that that you serve as their advancement director and their admissions director. Yeah, so our school actually gets to go pre-K three through grade 12. So it's great that you can start there very young and stay all the way through your high school graduation.

And it really is like this wonderful family that when you're here, you become this part of. And one thing that I have certainly learned, I have two children in the school in sixth and 11th grade currently. And one thing that I have learned in my position here now is that it's something that carries on many more years into the future where you continue to be a part of this wonderful family.

The school has been here, this is the 71st year. Of the school. And last year we did a 70th celebration and the stories that got shared with me during that time were just really heartwarming wonderful stories that helped me realize just how much this school community is supported and loved. It. It was really cool and it was a really cool event that, that I think you all did up there.

Just to bring back so many opportunities for your alumni to come back and reconnect with the school, maybe some of 'em that hadn't even been there for many years. And I think that was one of the most special things is even when you were planning out the event itself, it was, we just wanna give our alumni the chance to talk and relive those stories and share those stories.

Mm-hmm. And I think that was a really cool component of that event that maybe really happened organically. It really was. We had a separate room at the, we had a gala and we had a separate room set up as a memorabilia room. And we went around through both of our school buildings and collected some history.

And we reached out to people and said, if you have anything we could use for the evening, we would love to share that portion of the story. And then people came together and set that room up and the whole perimeter of the room, you know, had these different things. We had all of our yearbooks there available to look at for, 70 years worth of yearbooks.

And our yearbook class actually went through those yearbooks and created an 18 minute slideshow that was playing on loop that night in the room and also in the bar area for people in that room to just see some things and. I had it even shared with me that someone was, an older gentleman was looking at some of the stuff with a tear streaming down his face.

And I just, I was like, so glad that we did that and we're able to give everyone this chance to kind of go back in time and relive some memories and hopefully just help reignite their passion for the school. Yeah. And there's, and it's definitely a community that is well loved as we're gonna talk about here shortly.

And a school that has really over the past couple of years really come a long way. And so I think for. Our listeners to understand our episode today, we have to go back a few years. And because there's a lot of schools out there right now that maybe your enrollment's not where you want it to be.

Maybe your advancement dollars aren't where you want it to be. Maybe you whatever the case might be. We have schools out there, Catholic schools all over the country, all over the world who are listening to this episode who maybe say, yeah, this is great. Or they hear something and they go I don't, I wish we could do that.

This is a school today that we're talking about in Parkersburg Catholic, that, that has done this. Like you you're seeing the successes of your work, in play here. And so I think we need to go back in the time machine a little bit, a couple of years. Tell us about two things. One. Tell me about the state that Parkersburg Catholic was in a few years ago.

And two, I think it's important too for people to understand the town of Parkersburg. It's a great community. It's a great city. But this is not a booming metropolis. You don't have 4 million people living in Parkersburg. Okay. So I think it's understanding to give people an understanding of where your school is, what your, where your school was a few years ago, and a little bit about the city that, that you're in.

Yeah. So, as we were talking before we started recording there's people from all a lot of countries that are listening to this podcast. So we are in the United States for starters. Yep. We are in the state of West Virginia, not to be confused with Virginia right. Or Western Virginia. Correct. We are in West Virginia.

We are positioned in the mid Ohio Valley, which is right on the Ohio River. We have students from Ohio as well at our school and. We are a population of a little over 28,000 people. And only about 17% of that population is a Catholic population. So we are not a majority of our population is not a Catholic by, by faith.

So it's not something that, we just have this big successful school just simply because of the Catholic population in our area. So we are about 60 40 in terms of having students that are Catholic and about 40% are are not.

Tara, tell me a little bit about where the school was a couple of years ago when you got hired. Yeah, so when I came in, the school was in an enrollment decline and there were several. People, I mean, past principals and people that were very involved in trying to help rebuild the school and the faith that our diocese, our superintendent Jen Horak Yes.

And our Bishop Brennan, they had so much faith in our schools and our local pastors did as well. And they gave us like a timeline and they didn't just give us like a deadline that, these things need to happen or else it was, these things need to happen and we're gonna give you some resources.

We're gonna help put some people in place to help guide you through these next months to get you to a place where you could be a self-sustaining school. And so. That's a little bit of how you got connected with Parkerburg Catholic. You were one of those people that got brought in and you were already working with our school previously to Right.

Me getting hired. Yep. Not for real long, but a few months. You had been helping a couple months. Yep. And and so I came in August of 24. That was when our elementary principal, principal kind of came in at that same time. And our high school principal is new this school year, so we all have come in with some new ideas, energy that's just building off of a lot of work.

Some others had already really started laying the foundation for us and. I came in without any experience in Catholic education at all. So that was where finding your podcast before I even knew you were already working with the school. That was where it, it really helped me a lot in the sense of getting a good foundation of learning a little bit about Catholic education and just, I had a lot of wild ideas, I think because I didn't come in with experience in this area, so I didn't have anything to go off of.

And so I came in looking for, okay, what needs corrected or fixed or what could just be done better? Or just looking for ways to hopefully just make things run a little smoother and create some better systems, maybe to make some improvements. And, I really. Think then once you and I were able to connect, you started helping, I think, take some of what I was seeing, some of my ideas and helping me put that in some type of order that, okay, here's some todos now, like, to, to achieve what you're talking about that we need to do.

So it wasn't just about, oh, we just need to get kids and we just need more money, because it's great to say those things, but you really have to create some smaller, you need a game plan tasks along the way. We do, we ha we had to really create a game plan. And a lot of that I saw right away was, we just need to build some trust again in our school.

Because I think along the way, there was a lot of rumors in the area that the school was maybe gonna close. There was a lot of people then that were afraid to put their money in the school because they thought maybe there wasn't gonna be a school there to put their money into. No one really wants to put something into what they think or even just hearing is potentially a sinking ship.

So we really had to, do some work to get people to believe in the school again, that it was still going to be here, hopefully another 70 years. So a lot of that was starting in small areas. Maybe starting with sports teams, starting with, just grade by grade, which grades are the smallest that we need to start working at.

Bringing some students into, where do we start rebuilding this? So a lot of that came from getting students and those of us working at the school, even just going and speaking at the parishes at Mass again, like we go in once a month and we speak at every mass. We have somebody that speaks.

It might be a student, it might be a family, it might be an educator, it might be, administrator, but somebody is there to help represent and keep a connection between the parishes and the school. And that's a lot of work because we have five different parishes and several masses to attend.

So it's a lot of work to get somebody to do those every single month, but it was something very important. But there's intentionality behind what it like, like the, and I think that's one of the things that we always talk about is it's like it can't happen accidentally. It's gotta happen intentionally, right?

And I think that's something that you all have done such a great job with is to be intentional about saying, this is important to us because mm-hmm. We oftentimes hear from Catholic schools where our parish doesn't support us, or our parishes don't support us. But the question we asked back is, what are we doing to support our parishes?

And so I think one of the things that you all really have is just such a great connection with your parishes, with your pastors that it goes both ways. It's two-way street. And how many parishes do we know? How many schools do we know where multiple pastors attend your meetings or attend different opportunities for, to come together with leadership, things to be supportive of that school.

But also for that the school can be supportive of them. So I think that's a, I think it's such an important piece of this was to get those active parish partnerships going. And if you are out there and you are saying, yeah, that's great, but my pastor would never do that. That's great, but these folks would never do that for us.

It, you have to start somewhere. And I think that's, I think it's something that's really important to bring up is there has to be intentionality and purpose in what it is that you're doing. And it's gotta be a two-way street. It can't just be you asking, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme. It's gotta be, what can we do for you as well?

I think in a lot of times with our parishes. And so I think something that you mentioned a minute ago is really important because there are a lot of schools out there. And let's talk about the enrollment side of things for a minute. If there are rumors out there that a school's gonna close, if there are rumors out there that the school is running a huge budget deficit, if there are rumors out there that we might close a grade, I don't know, insert whatever wild and crazy rumors about any particular generic school community there are that exist.

There's a question out there of why should I give my dollars if this school's gonna close in a year, but even more so, why should I enroll my kindergartner here when they're never gonna finish at this school? Because it's not gonna be open by the time they're in third grade. And I think that was something that, that you did such a great job with at the school and your school community just did a great job with, was really kind of.

Changing the culture. And we talked a lot about this, I know, rebranding the school so that it was something that, that was seen as, not only are you gonna enroll your kid in kindergarten, but they're gonna graduate from here in 12th grade and it's gonna be an amazing experience. So talk about how you were able to do that.

So I had a conversation about this with one of our pastors just a couple weeks ago, and I think it's a perfect point that he made he said, we are being successful right now because I bought in because Katie bought in. And not only did we start working there, but we. We brought our kids there at the same time and we enrolled our own children.

So we were living what we were asking everyone else to do. And so I think that because we believed in it ourselves, it made it really easy. We weren't just making up a story that we were sharing with other people. You know, we were living it and we were saying this was something we were believing in and we were seeing the benefits in our own children and we were able to share our own stories about it.

And then this year I moved another child over as well. And, we see the benefit and we're getting to help share the stories of the other families that are seeing those benefits and those families are sharing those stories and it's just wonderful. I, I. I love what I get to do in working with new families that are coming in where I get to hear them sit sometimes with tears on their cheeks, telling me my child loves school for the first time ever and they're in high school.

Or my child, I don't have to fight with them right now to go to school because they're enjoying it so much and this is the best decision we made. I love getting to hear those stories and then share those stories then with other potential new families. Those are so special because, especially when you have people who have maybe been interested in your, from, interested in your school from a distance, but it's maybe we could never afford that.

Or we could, I, I don't know if that's the place for us or whatever. And then they come there and they feel just so comfortable, so happy, so. Much joy. And I think that's something that I hear a lot of times with Catholic schools is they say, well, we're a big family but are you and from what I've seen from Parkersburg Catholic, it really, you really mean that.

Like it, there is a Parkersburg Catholic family that exists within your community, as we've learned in some of the things we'll talk about here in a little bit, that family extends well beyond just the Parkersburg area all over the country and which is so awesome mm-hmm. To see, your alumni getting involved with your school and just being involved within your school.

One of the big pieces with this, and I think this is something that your schools deserve so much credit for, one of the things I'm often asked by principals or enrollment directors, advancement directors is they say, we have to get our faculty involved in what's happening in our school. And they're just fighting me on this.

They just won't. They won't help us with enrollment, they won't help us with advance, but we can't get 'em to show up for anything. We can't nothing. And your, your faculties have come together at both of the schools and, and I had the chance to meet 'em last year for the end of the year when I was on a visit to your school.

And just a great community, great, great groups of people that we, we were able to connect with and have lunch with and meet and see what they were doing. Talk about how you have reignited that fire within the faculty to be involved in these processes, because we know this, teachers have so much going on, we gotta teach, we gotta do lesson plan.

We got a grade, we gotta do this. And by the way, outside of school, were moms, were dads, were, sons, daughter, whatever the case might be. There's stuff going on. But you've been able to really get your faculty involved in this process as well. Talk a little bit about that.

Yeah. So for me coming in, and I am not over the teachers by any means, but I love to watch things and see where anything could maybe be better. So I grew up actually in a house of educators. My parents were both public school teachers and I grew up my whole life hearing their stories and things that they loved or didn't love about being a teacher.

So I feel like I came in with that background and I have, I stepped into my role realizing we had a lot of teachers who graduated from Parkersburg Catholic themselves, or their children graduated from Parkersburg Catholic. And they were there for a much bigger reason than just because they were to teach, they were really there.

It was part of, it's part of their legacy. And when I came in and I really saw. They were a little tired. When I got hired, I could see that, that they were tired. And I think a lot of teachers, you know, are, there's a lot that is put on them that people who maybe aren't in that line of work or around them a lot, they don't even know all that teachers are experiencing.

And that's something that I saw. They just, they needed to be loved on a little bit. They needed to be shown their appreciation. And that was something that I think definitely got improved on where we were able to communicate them, I think ation that we have while also saying we trust you to make a lot of decisions and to do a lot of things because you have a lot of wonderful experience.

So even as we've had these new principals move in, I think those principles have been great at realizing the trust they have in the staff that's there because they've been there. They trust our teachers and the history that they have at the school.

Their ability to teach and learn, and we have just really tried to build on showing them our love. And appreciation that we have. I think that can go a long way. When it comes from comes from the heart. And so we really tried to do that. And so not only I think have our principals done that, but we have some smaller groups within the school that have really been trying to do that.

Our parent volunteer group really tries to show some things. We have sports teams that have done nights at their games honoring our staff and inviting all of the staff at both schools to come to their game for the night and bringing them out on the court and thanking them or making announcements about them being there and just trying to I think we even fed them a dinner before one of the basketball games this year.

And just any way we can to say thank you and. That sometimes. I think that has just been, went a long way this year and I wish we could do more for our teachers. I wish we had that ability and we'll get there. Where we can keep doing that in bigger ways, I hope. But we really just try to say, we want you to come to this event.

Here's a free ticket. We've had alumni that have reached out, at our, have bought tickets and said, I can't attend, but I'm gonna buy a ticket. Would you please give this to one of the teachers? Or, so we've been able to show some support in all of those small ways.

And I think this goes back to again and I hope as people are listening to this, they are hearing. This is now a few times where the word intentionality comes in. There is intentionality behind everything that is happening. There's nothing accidental happening here. And I think this is when we talk about having a game plan at your school and having a process, I always say systems and structures, right?

And there's a system and there is a structure for everything that's happening here. And these types of things that they happen they're contagious and people start to say, Hey, we wanna do that too. We wanna do something for the faculty. We wanna do something for, our teachers, we wanna do, and it's contagious and it happens but it has to start with intentionality.

And I think that's something to be said with your leadership that you've been able to do, is to really create that contagious environment and that contagious culture where people want to be supportive of each other. And that's when you see a Catholic school come together as a family.

Absolutely. We are currently situated on two separate campuses in our town. So sometimes it's just really nice when we have a get together, an event of some type that really helps bring everyone together and we really get to see that true family atmosphere of everyone having a great time and this crusader family as we call it come together.

That's always really nice. Yeah, it's always fun. I love, love seeing the the stuff that's on your social media as well and following what's going on with that. And I think one of the things you've done a great job with at the school is and we know this, we've talked about this so we're blue in the face, but.

Don't underestimate the value of word of mouth marketing at your school. Mm-hmm. And when we talk about how much time we put into our recruitment efforts and our marketing efforts, the one I think that so many schools overlook is that word of mouth marketing, which costs you nothing. And I think one of the things that Parkersburg Catholic has done is really give opportunities to create that message, to create that brand that gives your current families that opportunity to take out into the community and go look at what's happening here.

Look at this amazing stuff that's going. And I'm gonna give one example here for those of you that, that are not listening. Now, your school has combined right now, I think out of two 50 students roughly. Is that roughly about it? Okay. Under, yeah, under two 50. Yeah, under two 50. So we are not talking about a campus of 12,000 students.

Right. And so last year. At the end of your elementary school principal's first year. Mm-hmm. You all did a quick video that was just a her with the kids around her. And then I love the behind the scenes version of this one too, so we'll talk about that in a second. But tell me about the video that you created and the impact that it had on your community.

And I wanna say that again, just realize this is a small school, this is in a small community. Mm-hmm. But the impact that your word of mouth marketing can have. So tell me about that video that you all recorded at the end of the year. Last year. Year. Yeah. So we, when I came on, we had, I think it was 1.2, thousand followers, I believe, on our Facebook page. When I started. And I did see that as the only way we could do some marketing really, because it was free and we didn't have a budget to do any kind of marketing. Our favorite words were cheap and free. Right. Yes. But it had value to it.

Correct. So, you know, it had a lot of value and I worked all year and there's another teacher that also makes a lot of those posts, but we worked all year on trying to really build that community. So when we got to the end of the school year, we had a parent that had seen other videos. We weren't the one to create that idea for the very first time.

Right. There were other schools and places that were doing that type of a video and we were like, Hey, we really need to do this. So we, we had our elementary principal, Katie was outside and she started like motioning in all of the students. And all the students come running in and surround her at the start of the video.

And then they go to the, it cuts over to the gym. All the students pre-K through five are lining around the baseline of the gym floor. Katie is sitting on a scooter or like a Yeah. Rolling cart thing. Right. And our Mr. Matt he's the janitor at the school. He was behind her and he's pushing her around on this scooter thing.

And she's got her camera in front of her phone, and she's videoing all the kids just waving at her as she rides around the gym floor. And the kids are so genuinely excited every single time, she got in front of them and they're all just waving and then it all got put to music and, and it was it was just this wonderful video at the end of the year where she was saying, I really found my people.

Like she was just yes. Genuinely saying thank you for my first year. It was so authentic. I really. I have really found my people and she was even down to the part where she had me put I think, a purple heart because purple's her favorite color and make sure you even add a little purple heart that I really enjoyed my first year.

We were so intentional in it being a personal message from her. And that video, I think we're in the 20 some thousands of views at this point, and our Facebook page is even up to, we're almost I think we're close to 3,500 followers now. So our viewership of our page has really grown and it's just a nice place where every single day we're getting to share some things about what we're doing at the school and just, not just word of mouth, which is very important, but now people can even go on there and see for themselves these pictures and videos and things, what school community is doing.

And I think that's the thing is you're giving them something to talk about. You're telling them the story of what's happening at your school and you're replacing a narrative that three years ago was the school's declining enrollment, the school might be closed. The whole, that whole thing we've talked about already and we've replaced that mm-hmm.

With look at this, look at what's happening here. Yeah. Look at these amazing things that are happening on this campus. Look at the amazing, look at the joy. I mean, you can't make up the joy that's in those kids' faces. And so Yeah. You're really have used the social media to your advantage.

And again, when we always say social media, it costs you nothing. Mm-hmm. It costs you a little bit of time each week to create these posts, to create the things, but there's intentionality with the messaging that we wanna put out there. In terms of what's happening at your school. It's not just random things.

It's not just, but we've looked at specifically when when's the best time to put things out there? When's the, what's the response rate that we're getting? Mm-hmm. What's, what do we, what kind of posts are people more interested in? Things like that. And I think that's, but again, it goes back to that word intentionality.

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And intentionally, what you're doing, and Facebook now is even running ads on our videos. Every time we make them, they're getting enough views that they're putting their ads on them, so, yeah. Yeah. And hopefully they give you all a kickback. I think. I think Facebook's doing better.

Well, I'm, I wish not. Yes. I'm kidding with that. Yeah. Not yet. We have actually one more, we've got one more checkbox to, to click before we can use it as any kind of a fundraiser for views. So this is where we've talked about where we were. We've talked about where we are sitting today, and I think one of the most exciting things, and this is when I tell schools to, to dream and to be able to think about where your school wants to be in the next five years.

I think this is something that's really exciting for your campus because I want you to think about this from the perspective you are listening to this podcast. What Terrace talked about this three years ago. There was a fear that we may not be here in five years. Okay? Rumors swirling around rumors the school's not gonna be open, the school's losing enrollment, all these things where the narrative was getting controlled by other people.

That culture has shifted over the past few years to, no, no. Not only are we going to be here, but we're rocking this and here's the story that we're telling and here's what we're all about, which has led to something very exciting to look forward to. And so I want you to just take us through what's happening on your campus now.

And if you were listening to this, just again, I'm gonna think about this three years ago, think about where they are and think about where this school is going to be over the next three to five years. And I can't wait to see where they go over the next 25 years. But talk about what's happening on your campus now.

The one thing this school community has taught me is to dream bigger. And it's a reminder that goes off every single morning on my phone. I have a reminder that goes off at 7 45 that says Dream bigger. Because when I started this job and I had some ideas that seemed. A little out of the box, perhaps every one of those that I worked to do had a bigger turnout than I thought it even would and could.

So I said right away, this community is showing me that I can keep dreaming bigger, that each of us can keep dreaming bigger. So I have that reminder daily that whatever I think we can do, we can probably go a little bigger than that. So, and the fact that we've had the support of the community, we've had the support of the diocese, the support of our local parishes behind all of that is, is what's leading into what, what we're talking about.

So the diocese said, okay, you had, we had 18 months to make a turnaround. And so not only have we been working towards making that turnaround, and we still have a little bit of work to go with that part of every goal that they kind of gave us. But they saw, they saw what we were doing and they said, we believe in you.

And so what? We're going to do to really show you that we believe in you and believe in your community is if your community can raise $500,000, we are going to give you 1.5 million. Which, so that's not a bad three to one, not a bad deal. Not a bad deal at all. Yeah, that's not a bad deal. We will give you 1.5 million so your elementary school can move to the high school campus.

We have an old convent on the campus of the high school that's sitting empty and that money can be used to renovate that building and move our elementary school. So we can have one campus, two separate buildings, but one campus with our Parkersburg Catholic community, which is going to help so much in consolidating different things.

Financially speaking, because that was a lot of the concern was the finances. So if you're looking at all those financial boxes that we have to check, this helps consolidate a lot of. Bills and some things to really reign in. Some of those, we don't have two different, locations now to take care of.

But it also just helps to build that community. So for those families that have students at both schools, they have one drop off location now. And for, the support that's just needed daily. Sometimes you just need some backup at a moment. You need to step away and you might need somebody to come over and cover.

Like, all of those things get to be easier. We get to help build the relationships of our older students. Maybe high school students now will get to go next door and read to, a kindergarten class or something or assist in some way and we get to tap into even more that. The gift of, the stewardship side and giving back that we already work on with our students.

But now we get to continue building that even more within our own community. And those older kids get to help the younger ones, get to better look up to those older ones and, be excited for their future of moving over to that building and, wanting to do that.

And we've started to see that this year because we would invite the elementary kids to come to things at the high school and we would give them tickets that, we would say, you're gonna get in free. And we would give them themed things for that night's game that they could come in and they had so much fun wearing cowboy hats or, having little blowup crusader swords that they got to, wave during the games.

And the kids just loved that. They got, they were invited to sit in our student sections and they just thought they were. The real deal, the VIPs right there. That's right. We went to the state basketball tournament this year and some of those younger kids traveled traveled there and sat in the student section for the high school, games and their parents were telling me how they talked about that for days and just thought that was the greatest thing.

And it makes those kids so excited to be a part of that one day too. Yeah. And I think that's so important because our older students need to be mentors and ambassadors for our school, for our younger students, and we want our younger students to say, I can't wait until I get to do that.

I can't wait till I get to be partaking in that. And if done correctly, when they get to that point, they should be mentoring that next generation of students who is coming to the school and things of that nature.

So. Tara, as I'm hearing this one, you have, and I kind of have a little insider baseball on this one, so forgive me for that one. But I'm thinking $500,000 that's gonna take you like a year or two to raise that much money in your school.

How is that coming along here? Because we're about 40, we're about 40 days into the process here. 40, 50 days into this since this has been launched. Yes. February the 20th. February 20th, yeah. The bishop came. Yes, the bishop came to town and he made the announcement because this has all been his initiative.

He came for a visit back in the fall. This is all happening very quickly. Yes. He came for a visit back in, I believe it was October and. He looked out one of the windows of the elementary school and he said, you know, there's a lot of grass at the high school location because our downtown location of the elementary school has no grass.

And not that it's not still a wonderful place. Yes, it's a beautiful building. It's very confined. Yeah. It's a very, it's a very confined area. Yes. Based on where the geography, locations. Yeah. And we have no room to grow and we currently have several classes that are now waitlisted. There's no room to grow in that building.

So he said, you know, there's a lot of grass at the high school and have you ever thought about moving over there? And, that has been something people have dreamed about for a couple of decades really. There have been drawings put together and there's been, thought of this and somehow it's just never completely come together yet.

But it also never had the backing of. Everyone all at the same time the way we do right now. We, it never before had this type of massive support from our parishes. It never had this type of level of support from the superintendent and from the bishop and everybody kind of coming in this perfect storm together with this excitement has led to, it was thought of in October and OC in December it was passed at the finance council meeting for the diocese, and in February we got to officially announce it and we were so confident in our community that we could do this.

Our committee chair, he said, we're going to raise this money by April the 30th. So he was giving us slightly under 10 weeks to. Raise this money. So he said, we've gotta raise an average of about 50,000 a week, to make this happen. Which you are not a school that is traditionally raising $50,000 a week.

I wanna, I wanna make sure that people hear this one not, oh my goodness. No. Okay. So when you hear this, don't just think like, oh yeah, Tara's swimming in money over here. Yeah. To say that we have to raise $500,000 is not like saying you gotta take $5 outta the ATM. Okay. So this is a very yeah.

Big goal. This is, you know, last year when I was, it was my first year there when I would receive a random donation I didn't expect in the mail that was, maybe a thousand dollars or 500. I mean, it didn't have to be much. Yeah. I was doing such a happy dance and I still do. Yep. I, it was just, but that might have been it that week.

And and as John already mentioned, we're. We have less than 200 between both of our schools. So we're not this huge school community right now that just has all this money rolling in all the time. And so when we said that we really, we went, we were out on a limb saying we really believe in this community.

And we are collected, we are almost at $400,000 right now in collected funds. And with pledges, we know we're going to hit our target by the April 30th deadline. We've got some money that's on its way. People had to take some time to pull it from some places. Mm-hmm. But we have people literally all over the country that has.

Stepped up and said, yes, we wanna keep this, we wanna keep this going. In our hometown or in our current community. We have everything from a gentleman handing us $40 cash at mass saying, I want you to put this towards the elementary school to some families giving us much larger donations.

And we are so grateful for every single one of those because together, that is just making this all happen. And I love that even the ones that are not able to give the huge gifts, know the value still, that they're able to help and that we have been able to put out a message that is still this amazing gift that they are giving and that they get to be a part of it.

No matter the size of that gift. And I'm so proud that we've been able to put this message out that helps them all to feel like they wanna be a part of it. And what's really cool about this too, is. When we learned that this was gonna happen and the offer that was made was the 500 for the 1.5.

I think what's really cool about this is, and this goes back to, and again, I hate to keep reemphasizing this, but go back three years ago and go back to today, and when we said we have to raise $500,000 before this project can begin, nobody blinked. Nobody. Okay. Your principals didn't blink you as the advancement director didn't blink.

Jennifer didn't. Nobody blinked. It was kinda like, we know we're gonna do this. It wasn't even a, well, I hope we can get to that number. Wow. That's a really big number. It was, we're gonna do this and we're gonna make this happen. And I think too, because I think one of the things that's gonna be , really important for people to understand is.

You and I'm gonna use you as a generic terminology, you the listener out there, maybe at a school where these types of projects were maybe brought up in the past, as you mentioned, and things were never followed through. And when we have projects that never materialize, it just really breaches the trust of the school.

And that's not un, that's not something that, that I'm guessing you're immune to as well. Over the 70 years of the history of the school there probably have been projects where it was, Hey, we're gonna do X And you mentioned, Hey, this has been talked about for decades to come. But I think what it is that you're doing and that your community has been able to do is to say what you mean and mean what you say, and delivering on these promises and not over-promising and under-delivering, but quite the opposite.

So talk about how you may have handled those kind of, that, that kind of a history with the school. Yeah. I think I mentioned before that we. We've really had to rebuild trust in the schools. Not only through building enrollment, but by exactly what you're saying right now, that we really need to show that if you give us a donation, we're gonna do with it what we said we were going to do with it.

And we knew that we had to start very small with that. So last year before we even knew this was going to be what today looked like we were already working on that, recognizing that needed to happen. So it started with very small things. Mm-hmm. If somebody said, I would like to take care of fixing the ice machine, which was one of the things I remember that we fixed the ice machine and we made sure that person knew we fixed the ice machine.

And if we. Said we needed just whatever it was, we, we put out some very specific needs so that people could see something happening with their dollars. And they knew that they took care of that and that we showed them, we took care of that. So we knew we had to do some things like that along the way.

Smaller projects, working up to some larger ones like getting new front doors put on the high school. That was a big one. Yes. And that was something that our gala funds went towards. Plus we got a grant to help cover that. And that was something we were able to show, Hey, look what, look what our community came together to do.

We have more secure doors now. 'cause building security has been a huge. Thing that we've done. Mm-hmm. Which I believe also helps with building that trust. We want families to feel like if I'm sending my kids there, they're, they're going to be safe. So there's been many steps that we've been taking over the last year, especially as we've been able to see and really see those needs.

We've been able to put those out there and our families have been able to step up and take care of those. And so that's been really important. And so all of that played a role in, when we got to this much larger project, people were saying, okay they're gonna do it. They're gonna, they're gonna do it this time.

And we, it wasn't just about our school doing it, it was about the diocese doing it and the bishop saying, I'm backing this project and it's going to happen. And it is our superintendent being here for meetings and. Checking in on us so many times and giving us that support and motivation and, all of those things.

And so, and it's our, and it's our priest coming by and checking out things at the school. We have a designated pastor at each school, but sometimes they visit the other school and sometimes the one that's not our designated pastor is there, for some reason. And it's just wonderful seeing their presence and their support of the school and the students and the staff.

And just knowing anytime we're having a rough day or anything, we can call them up and they're gonna help us through any of those things. And that they're able to share the message with their parishioners as well. And the fact that it's not just coming from them. As I stated earlier we're, they're present in the churches trying to rebuild those relationships also.

Yeah. I think that's such a big thing that you are so blessed in your diocese. You have such an amazing superintendent, such an amazing bishop support from the diocesan offices as well up there. Yes. Your local pastors. I mean, this is truly a team effort on this one to make sure that not only does Catholic education survive in Parkersburg, but it thrives in Parkersburg.

And you are going to, if you were listening to this podcast today, at the time we're recording this, I hope that you listen to this again in five years and that you Google Parkersburg Catholic and see where they're at in five years, 10 years, because I think it's gonna be something really, really amazing.

And we're already seeing the amazing things we already know. It's an amazing community. It is just, it's just truly impactful. One of the other things I just wanna ask you about, 'cause I would be remiss by, and again, I have a little insider baseball knowledge on this one, but I have to ask this because I think one of the things you mentioned before was about how.

People that have looked to support a project at the school have been able to do this. And I think one of the things that your school does so well is to allow whether it be alumni or community members, be tuition angels to help with, like cover the costs of some of the tuition for your students. Can you talk a little bit about the tuition Angels program that you have at the school and what, just a big impact this has on the community?

Yeah. I certainly cannot take credit for tuition Angels as it was already in place when I stepped into my role, but it has been something that I've been able to work closely with seeing it be such a blessing to our students and the families at our school. So we. We do have the benefit now in West Virginia of the Hope Scholarship.

Mm-hmm. Which is something that is helpful for West Virginia residents. Only the Ohio students that come to our school are not able to receive that money. But our diocese has a tuition assistance program that's available. And then once those two avenues have been, applied for and things, we have tuition angels that can step in.

So we actually have our biggest fundraiser for that coming up on May 5th. We have a local give local MOV stands for Mid Ohio Valley. We have that coming up and it's our day of giving and we do all of the funds on that day go towards our tuition angels and there are. Other people our alumni and local families that maybe hear of a student that could use some assistance and sometimes they reach out and say, I'm gonna I know this family needs some help and I would like for you to just take care of, I wanna be a tuition angel in that way.

And sometimes they're just giving, maybe it's a hundred dollars, maybe it's a thousand dollars or thousands of dollars that they're saying, put this in your tuition angel's funds and use that, as needed. And we do always ask our families to reach out to those other avenues first. The, and once they've done that, we have an application now that they can fill out.

To get the help locally. And it is wonderful that we have that to, because we tell everybody, we don't want money to be the only reason you decide not to come. Does that mean I think everybody should come for free? I, no, I think we all need some skin in the game. I think that helps all of us to buy into the product and know that it's a value.

And some of us, me included we make some sacrifices in other things because we know the value of the education that our kids are getting and not just even the education side. It's that, we say it's your mind, body, and soul that, that we're helping to develop at Parkersburg Catholic. And so I, I see the benefit spiritually that my kids are getting and I see.

I just see so many of those things that are such a benefit, and so I'm okay driving an old car that because it's paid off mm-hmm. And that go towards paying for my kids' education and so we do, we make some sacrifices and things, but but I do know it's such a, it's such a, it's something I would give, give up every day to see what I'm, my, my kids are getting.

And, but I also realize that sometimes you still need an extra help. So it's so wonderful that we have people that will step up and say, I know the value that I got or my kids got, or maybe they didn't even get to go through Catholic school. Maybe they just see the value in some way because the kids are coming to their church or something.

And I love that there are people out there that are willing to, to help with that. Yeah, I think it's such a special thing for sure. And just think about this one too. There's a lot of people out there in your school community. Who maybe at one time went to your school, maybe at one time they were on the receiving end and now they wanna give back to those things.

So putting those opportunities out there for people to be part of this is such a special thing and don't ever sleep on that. Give your community members even ones without kids or grandkids in your school, that opportunity to support the school. So one of the things you, when we were prepping talking about, beforehand of this was you said, we need to make sure that we mentioned this group of people because I know you wanna give 'em a shout out because they've been helpful to you.

And so I'm gonna honor your request on that one. In terms of, one of the things that you belong to is the mastermind cohort that we do. And I know that group of people that is part of that is a very special group to you and ones that are very supportive in terms of sharing ideas and things like that.

So talk about, because I think this kind of a job, any sort of administrative job within the Catholic schools. Is a lonely job. And having that support system that you can have a boost of vitamin C on or whatever you wanna say is so helpful. So, talk to you about the, just the support that group gives you, and maybe a little shout out to them just in terms, 'cause I, that your group is so much fun to work with, so, I'm not being shameless in that plug, but really, and truthfully this is, it is such a fun time that we all have with each other each week and learn a whole lot from it.

So, talk to me about that a little bit. Yeah, so we have, as you said, we have this mastermind group of advancement directors that I get to be a part of, and we are coming in from all over the country via Zoom call. And it's so, it's so nice every single week we get to, I just told John I, it's like therapy.

We get to come together and we get to kind of start off with here's what's happening in our schools. And sometimes it's this cheering and excitement and sometimes we just need to let something out that's maybe going on and, and maybe one of the other schools has, has dealt with that or, or something.

And it's just a way that we get to vent for a second and just. Let those things out and we have a group of support that are giving us ideas and giving us, or just sometimes it's just, you're not alone in this. And sometimes that's just so helpful to hear. But it is such a wonderful, just, one hour every week or two that we all get to come together and support each other and share ideas with each other.

And it's, it's just a wonderful place to come together.

So I'm gonna ask one last question here today, because you are now three years and I remember when we talked about this gosh, it seems like forever ago but now here we are. And I remember, I would say to you, when you get to the other side of this, it's gonna look so much different and it's gonna be such a 'cause it, you go from that point of like, you're just trying to survive to the point where it's like, now we're thriving and now we're at that point where that, that thing we talked about a year or two ago, now you're at that point where you're ready to take that big leap forward.

But there's a school out there that's where you school was three years ago, five years ago, whatever the case might be. What do you say to that principal or that admissions director or that enrollment director or the advancement director who is where you were a couple of years ago? Now you get to give that advice to them.

To give them something to look forward to on the other side. What would you say to that person? Try not to feel overwhelmed. That's my first piece of advice, which is easier said than done. But how I try to really do that is like a big brain dump. So it's maybe just recognizing, okay, here's some areas that need work.

Here's where I would like to be in 2, 3, 5, 10 years, whatever. This is where I would love to see the school at and maybe start trying to work backwards from, from one of those. So what would need to happen to get me to this point? And start trying to create very small tasks and celebrate all of those little wins along the way.

Because it can be very overwhelming when you're just looking at only the end and not seeing. How you can get there and celebrating smaller wins along the way and surround yourself with some support to help you you know, lean on an advisory board. Find those people that can help with different areas that have some resources in those areas that can help be some people you can lean on for some advice.

And, you know, I will plug my help, my assistants here from John. You know, that has been wonderful for me to come together with him. Weekly really, because yeah, we meet individually, we meet on the mastermind groups. On the Masterminds, yeah. Sometimes it's just us sending a text message back and forth where he's checking in 'cause he knows something was coming up and I've been able to give him an update.

Or sometimes it's just reaching out, Hey, I just need help with this real quick. And we get on a phone call and it's been really nice to have just any resources that you can find along the way to find those people that you can have in your corner because it can feel very lonely at times. And so you really need to have those people.

Yeah, I think that's so important. Don't go at it alone because it can feel like the loneliest job in the world. But I'll tell you what, when you're on the other side of this, as you are. Right now. And now you're looking forward to not just how are we gonna make our budget? How are we gonna make our enrollment goal?

You are thinking, how are we gonna raise $500,000 to put a school next to our other school on a new campus and things like that. It's exciting. It's exciting to dream and to dream big. I think that's what you said before. Yep. And we're, we're gonna keep dreaming at Parkersburg Catholic

As we are talking about all this, I am sure there are families, parents, alumni, community members, anybody that may want to learn more about this project that you're doing or maybe even wanna support it. So how would they get in touch with you? Or is there a website that you have or anything like that that you can share with everybody so that they can see exactly what you're doing?

Yeah, so for the most up-to-date information, I would definitely say to follow along on our Facebook page, which is Parkersburg Catholic Schools, and that's where we're giving weekly updates on where we are with the fundraising and just any other bits of information messages from our priests, our principals.

All of that is happening on our Facebook page. You can also go to our school's website, which is parkersburg catholic.com. I'm sure John will probably put that in the notes. So that definitely will people know the know the spelling and everything. 'cause Parkersburg does not have an H on the end of it.

Like Pittsburgh, unlike Pittsburgh, I was gonna say. Exactly. That's right. That's right. But if you go to our website, right on the homepage is the original press release from the diocese. So it's got messages there from the bishop, from Bishop Brennan, and you'll see a rendering of the building. You will see some pictures from the day that the announcement was made.

So you can kind of get caught up a little bit right there of the purpose of the whole project and again, this 500,000 that we're raising, which we are very, very close. To hitting, we're in our final two weeks of this fundraising campaign now, and that is going to just get this project kickstarted.

We know there's a little bit more work to do down the road, so if anybody, would like to help us out with that, we would just so greatly appreciate it. Absolutely. And all the pictures are great. The kids, the smiling faces, you can just see the excitement in those. So I really encourage you to check that out.

Parkersburg Catholic website, I will link that in the show notes for you. And if there's anybody out there that's listening to this, they are inspired, they are feeling like, wow, this is so amazing what this school has been able to do. Are you okay if I put your, your email address in there too for people to reach out to you maybe with a question or things like that?

Yeah, absolutely. And that's also right there on the website too, so it's at the bottom of that press release. So yeah, you're welcome to give the school a call or send me an email and I'm happy to talk with you and, and we can have people inspired to dream big. Yes, dream bigger. Even that, that's my bigger is my, I feel like I'm always a big dreamer, so I said this community really taught me to dream bigger.

Awesome. Such amazing things are happening there. Such amazing things are going to be happening there. Just a big shout out to your administration, your faculty, your families, your teachers, and your diocese leaders as well, because they have put all the faith in the world, in Catholic education at Parkersburg.

And it is, it is paying off in spades and it is gonna continue to do so, so, so excited for you. So excited for your school community and just wishing you nothing but the best. Can't wait to see what, what happens next for you. Thank you so much.

Wow. What a great story. Thank you so much to Tara Nelson for her time on this podcast. If you wanna read what's happening at Parkersburg Catholic, the information will be in the show notes. And if you're listening to this and thinking that your school could do a better job with your retention, your donor engagement, and just that long-term enrollment stability, this is exactly what I do through Elementary Advancement Solutions, help Catholic school leaders just like you build us.

Simple system so the schools can grow and thrive long term. if you'd like to explore what that could look like at your school, I'd love to connect with you.

You can find my contact information and my calendar in the show notes below. Until next time, keep doing the amazing work that you are doing in your school community because they are counting on you. God bless. I.