By Jay Sorgi • Posted March 6, 2026

One family and one Catholic school are impacting the lives of countless Philadelphians with great power. In doing so, they are empowering dozens of students to focus their lives on service to others. All of it is woven through multiple family generations and their commitment to the Augustinian mission.

The Riley Family Foundation’s latest impact comes by catalyzing Malvern Preparatory School students to act as agents of compassion with partnerships stretching across those various branches of Catholic Charities of Philadelphia and beyond.

The foundation, led by Barbara and Brian Riley, has seeded $6 million dollars over the last few years into numerous charitable ministries within the Catholic Church of Philadelphia. This philanthropic support directly benefits nearly 300,000 people throughout the five-county area every year who struggle with immense hardship. The foundation has also impacted the education and formation of Malvern Prep students through capital projects like Riley Hall and other modes of support for the young men who study there and live the Catholic faith through the Augustinian lens.

“I’ve been in an Augustinian parish my entire life at St. Thomas (of Villanova). I went to grade school there. Brian and I were married at Villanova. My father was pretty involved in the parish there, and then it came time for our boys to go to Malvern (Prep),” Barbara said. Eventually their daughter Madison Riley began working with The Communities of Don Guanella and Divine Providence (DGDP) after volunteering there with the Riley Family.

The good works being performed at DGDP is just one way the Foundation is connecting Malvern students with opportunities to serve as beacons of Christ’s compassionate love through the school’s Christian Service program. It most recently included service days with the Malvern Prep football team at DGDP, student days assisting at Community Center of Visitation Pantry, and days of social responsibility helping at the Delaware County Family Service Center.

“My son Finn and I were on a rugby trip with the football coach’s wife in Italy, and we kind of put two and two together. We’ve got these wonderful people, special needs. How do we get these boys to experience these things in their lives? It’s a rare opportunity when you’re in it,” Barbara said. “It’s been so good for everyone involved.”

“One of the things that St. Augustine really knew was that he was never on a journey by himself. He knew he needed others to become the best version of himself, and then also to grow in building community,” said Father Bill Gabriel, OSA, Malvern Prep’s Head of Mission and Ministry.

“In a really beautiful way, this partnership from an Augustinian Catholic lens has been building meaningful and mutual relationships in a way that is advancing the common good, and working towards a way that builds inclusion as well as saying ‘human dignity at its best.’”

“It’s just simple connections and conversations, building on relationships between our boys and the people down in Kensington, for example, that’s a prime example of our boys trying to make a small impact in the lives of these people that are hungry, homeless and suffering through where they live and their struggles in life,” Malvern Prep Director of Christian Service Kelly Catania adds.

“This is what St. Augustine calls us to in our Catholic faith, through truth, unity, and love.”

Barbara and Brian’s son Finn happens to be one of the young people who have activated that truth, unity and love within these days of direct service and commitment to others, and his sister Madison gets to see it all in action.

“If you talk to probably anybody my age, anybody who’s gone through (Malvern Prep), they’d say the most impactful service they have done would be like that. The groups of kids who have gone there still talk about it to this day,” Finn says of these service experiences he and his brother Jack have had.

“Success for me now isn’t just me being okay or me being well-off. A greater purpose or meaning in life is to be able to help other people, (and) they’re just like me, just in different circumstances. (It) shapes who I am and who I want to become.”

“They’re whole people,” Madison says in describing the people she works with, and the individuals Malvern Prep volunteers with.

“I just want to expand their window and give them some of what I have, because some of them are historians, some of them are artists, some of them are big readers, some of them love to crochet.”

Leaders at these Catholic Charities of Philadelphia ministries are grateful to know that the Riley family will continue to commit to help Malvern Prep students encounter these service experiences far beyond when Finn graduates.

“Somebody asked me the other day, ‘When Finn graduates, is this over?’ I’m like, ‘No, we’ve just begun,’” said Dawn O’Neill, philanthropy officer at DGDP. “For me, it’s the Holy Spirit.”

Barbara says in general, she and her husband thank God for the chance to turn what life has given them into opportunities to give, and to foster a life of giving in young people.

“Malvern has provided these boys so many opportunities to live their faith, and I think they’ll go on after,” Barbara said.

“These young men coming out of Malvern, my own kids, if they’re all going around doing God’s work,” she adds with understatement and a grateful smile, “that’s pretty good.”