Help Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic School raise funds for its new learning center and have a chance to win a 2022 Ford Maverick truck by participating in a mega raffle on Dec. 1.
The Glendale school offers students a comprehensive education that incorporates lessons of Catholic spirituality. Bruno Jimenez, involved with the school, said the parish does its best to provide for the kids, but needs help from the community to better serve the kids.
“This is not a very wealthy area,” he said. “It’s a poor community. These children are underserved, we just don’t have the facilities. It’s a kindergarten to eighth grade school, but we don’t really have the resources to provide them with a proper education.”
To change this, Our Lady of Perpetual Help is raising funds to build a new learning center at the school. Jimenez said this idea came from Father Ernesto Reynoso more than two years ago, but fell through when COVID-19 hit. Now it is trying again and hoping to break ground in December.
“Our teachers and staff work hard each year to make sure our underserved students are provided with opportunities which help them develop important skills in life such as integrity, moral values, innovation, problem solving and rational thinking,” Reynoso said in a statement. “This year we’re beginning the construction of a 10,000-square-foot innovation center that will provide our 332 students the ability of having future opportunities in the growing innovation market.”
The center is estimated to cost $2.5 million to complete. According to Jimenez, Shea Homes has partnered with the school and will provide the bulk of the funds. The company’s only stipulation was that the parish needed to raise $500,000 to show it has “skin in the game,” as Jimenez put it. To raise the money, it is hosting a raffle with 100 items, with a 2022 Ford Maverick XL as the biggest prize.
“There’s a two-day vacation in Rocky Point, a two-day staycation here at a cabin, an outdoor sound system, earbuds, watches, an iPhone, a PlayStation 5, an outdoor heater, lots of those kinds of things. Then we’ve also got some jewelry as well,” Jimenez said.
Other items include a 65-inch smart TV, iPad, Chromebook, luggage set, fire pit, cooking utensils and more. Jimenez said one of the few items the parish had to buy was the truck, and most of the other items were donated by or sponsored through community partners.
“Walmart has pitched in and actually gave us a grant to help us out and to buy some of the prizes,” he said. “We’ve also had some other folks like the Phoenix Mercury, the Suns’ organization, who contributed. Some of the Walmarts actually contributed with a gift certificate and some school supplies. So, we’ve been getting a lot of help from the community.”
All of the proceeds from the raffle tickets will go toward the learning center. Jimenez said the hope is that the center will be completed in about one year. He is excited for the opportunities it will offer students.
The center will have four sections for art, music, STEM and a library. Jimenez said it was important to Reynoso father to include STEM to make sure that the students are equipped with the proper knowledge as the world becomes more innovative and technologically advanced. But the school teaches more than what’s in the textbooks.
“The father wants to also teach them about the world,” Jimenez said. “The center is just to help kids grow into adults and understand not just technology, but things like integrity, honesty and those kinds of things that schools don’t necessarily teach.”
Raffle tickets are $100 and can be purchased online at olphglendale.com or by phone at 623-939-9785. Jimenez said anyone can donate online without participating in the raffle, but to be sure to specify that the donation is specifically for the school.
