To celebrate fifteen years as an independent Catholic School, Gesu highlighted at least fifteen stars at a Gala event on May 1 at the Philadelphia Art Museum. Four hundred people attended.

Among the stars was Jamar Stokes, Gesu '96, who spoke about his success working with Deloitte and his two years with a traveling basketball group like the Harlem Globetrotters.

In the picture at the top are Ralph and Bette Saul with Bob McAlain. Ralph received the Gesu Spirit Medal and I was honored to introduce him:

With great joy Gesu School recognizes one of its most outstanding stars, Ralph Saul. Ralph and Bette Saul became friends of the children of Gesu School on a lovely June night in 1992 at a sponsorship benefit dinner. This event took place while the school was still a parish school, a year before the parish closed. In my mind’s eye still are Pat Cooney and her late husband, Gordon, introducing the Sauls to Sister Ellen Convey, then and now the principal and me, then the pastor of the parish. Pat knew then that Ralph would be a star. Never had he not been one. I see that event now as a watershed moment for our children. Ralph and Bette extended and still to this day extend personal generosity and kindness to all in the Gesu community. And Ralph also uses his considerable influence built on years of leadership in the financial and insurance community to draw others to our mission. Among his earliest finds for the children, for example, were John and Rosalee DiIulio. And I could list a dozen others. For the mission with the children of Gesu Ralph is a star with the warmth and luminosity of the sun.