First, I want to thank you for jumping right into the new Bishop Maginn High School Wish List. I have a feeling we are going to get these 26 laptops and 20 microscopes before September. I’ve long been advocate for this kind of fund-raising, it gives people choice and connection, and it also lets them know exactly what the money is for and where it is going. It is also tax-deductible in this case.

I talked with Mike Tolan, Maginn’s Principal, a few minutes ago, he is very grateful for the movement the Wish List has already shown. Mike Tolan is the real deal, he has stuck his neck out to help these refugee children.

The teachers have made enormous sacrifices to do this work.

“We’ve had a lot of challenges here,” he said, “some very rough years, and sometimes I was close to giving up hope. But these last few weeks have given all of us hope again, thanks to the generosity of so many people. You are all amazing.  This fall, we are getting in a wonderful class, looking forward to our new choir,  music and art programs, and to teaching these children, some of whom are desperately poor, a way to learn computing and science. These are absolutely essential to our school, and are desperately needed by these children.This will alter the course of their lives and help us do what we are committed to doing, helping the needy and the vulnerable and using education as way of finding the American Dream.”

I told Mike Tolan to not give up hope, help is on the way.

We are putting up the Acer laptops two at a time, and if they sell, we’ll put up five or six more. This Wish List is working.

So far this morning, we’ve sold three laptops at $205 each and two microscopes which are $89.99 apiece. The school needs 26 computers and 20 microscopes. These items are all tax-deductible.

Before this list, the high school did not have a single functioning laptop or microscope. The school has opened itself up to the children of the neediest refugees. They are also a Catholic school in an urban area during a troubled time for the church. Their budget has been slashed again and again, many students can’t pay the full tuition, we are getting them things they could not have gotten on their own.

This school does what religious organizations have always preached – helping the poor and the vulnerable – but which few are actually doing. This school is the real deal.

At the moment,  1 p.m. E.D.T., the wish list has been replenished, it has four separate items of different quantities: three Acer laptop computers ($205, three Amscope microscopes ($89.99),  and some assigned summer reading books – The Kite Runner ($14.40 apiece, they need 15), Khaled Hosseini’s much acclaimed story of an immigrant youth, and The Kite Runner Graphic Novel ($21.00, they are looking for 20).

In this school, every penny counts, your contributions make an enormous difference.

If these computers sell over the next day or so, we’ll add five more and we will be more than halfway to our goal of 26 (a donor check of $1,000 for computers is on the way.) Thank you so much.

You can go see the Bishop Maginn Amazon Wish List here. I buy something every morning, it is a great start to the day, it sets the tone. Doing good feels good, it is so much better than arguing about what good is.