Shawe Memorial High School - Fundraising Support

Fundraising Support

While prayer and fundraising were both good at keeping the schools open, supporters of the Catholic school system realized they needed something else to ensure the future of the schools, which weren’t always financially stable.

The Prince of Peace Catholic Schools (Pope John XXIII Elementary and Shawe Memorial) are the only Catholic school system in the Archdiocese of Indianapolis that is funded solely by one parish. In July 1986, (Truax) a group of supporters of the schools came together, at the request of the parish schools' committee, to explore ways to preserve the Catholic elementary and secondary education that was offered to the Madison, Indiana community. Afterwards an endowment fund resulted, guaranteeing that the Prince of Peace Catholic Schools would be available to the Madison community, and the communities surrounding it, for many years to come (Belt).

The group, now known as Friends of Shawe and Pope John XXIII Schools, Inc. has grown to become the only privately managed endowment fund in the archdiocese. In 1996, the fund hit the one million dollar mark. In an effort to push the number even further, the group finished a $2.5 million campaign for the schools in 2006, entitled Friends for the Future (Belt).

More than thirteen-hundred students have graduated from Shawe Memorial since 1956. While many of them are still located in Madison, several have spread their wings to do various things. From a former governor’s chief of staff to an Emmy-winning advertising executive, the alumni of this school have highly benefited from their time as students there, where the motto has always been, “Spiritus, Mentis et Corpus,” or otherwise known as “Spirit, Mind and Body.”