Officials at the Cornerstone Schools project in Detroit have celebrated the fulfillment of their goal of having one adult mentor from the local business community for each of the students in the three interfaith Christian schools that opened last year for inner-city children.
Dozens of corporation executives, lawyers, physicians, judges, and others have come forward to establish a long-term relationship with each of the 167 students in the Cornerstone schools this year, said the project’s director, Norma Henry.
The mentors also donate $2,000 for their child, which helps close the gap between the $4,200 per-pupil cost and the $1,800 annual tuition.
The mentors will have their first chance to interact with their students--who range in age from 4 to 13 years--next month when Cornerstone officials host a group art activity.
The partnership program has proved so successful, Ms. Henry said, that the adult partners currently outnumber the Cornerstone students.
But each of the adults will eventually have a child to mentor, she said, because enrollment is expected to increase to about 240 students by the time the school year opens.
The experiences of Native Americans in the Roman Catholic Church will be the subject of a book to be published by the National Catholic Educational Association in the next few weeks as part of a multicultural series.
The release of The People: Reflections of Native Peoples on the Catholic Experience in North America by four Native American religious is intended to lend perspective to observances of the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s arrival on the continent and heighten awareness about the often profoundly negative influences the Church has had on Indian peoples, its authors said.
Through unvarnished honesty about the past, it is hoped the book can bring about “reconciliation’’ among all North American inhabitants, said the Rev. P. Michael Galvan, pastor of St. Monica’s Parish in Moraga, Calif., and Sister Marie Therese Archambault of Regis University in Denver.
The book’s other authors are Sister Kateri Mitchell, director of religious education in the Diocese of Fairbanks, Alaska, and the Rev. Paul Ojibway, director of the native urban ministry for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
The 90-page book will include discussions of the demographics of native peoples, native spirituality, evangelization, and model prayer services as well as a list of references and print and audiovisual resources.
Copies, priced at $10 each for members and $13.30 each for nonmembers, may be ordered through the N.C.E.A. publication sales office, telephone (202) 337-6232.--M.L.
