Posted July 23, 2018

The St. Thomas More Alumni Association announced in April that it had awarded $148,000 in scholarships for the 2018-2019 academic year.

Since St. Thomas More Catholic Boys High School closed in 1975 and the scholarship fund for students attending Philadelphia-area Catholic high schools began, $1.5 million has been distributed and the endowment fund’s value stands at $1.2 million, according to the alumni association.

Of those receiving scholarships from the association, 119 students attending Catholic high schools within the Archdiocese of Philadelphia received awards of $1,000 this year from the Archdiocesan Scholarship Fund.

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The award winners are attending 19 schools within the archdiocese.  Cardinal O’Hara High School had the most student recipients of the scholarships at 32.

Nineteen students attending Catholic high schools outside the Philadelphia Archdiocese received awards of $1,000 from the National Scholarship Fund. The award winners attending 14 schools mostly on the East Coast and three students attend school in California.

Fourteen students attending three elementary schools in Philadelphia and Delaware County split $10,000 from Pennsylvania’s Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) Program.

A major consideration to receive a St. Thomas More award from the Archdiocesan or National Scholarship Fund is that the recipient is sponsored by and related to an alumnus of the school.

While the numbers of St. Thomas More students was never great — the association estimates only about 6,000 ever walked its halls in West Philadelphia from 1936 to 1975 — alumni have always wanted to show their appreciation for their Catholic education.

With the efforts of their association, members continue to further Catholic education through the scholarships they support.