6 minute read
Not Taken for Granted: Vice Principal Tompkins’ Efforts to School Funding and College Partnerships
By Valerie Lippe P’25
In the world of private school advancement, the topic of grants has none of the sheer, attention-grabbing power of, say, capital campaigns. Indeed, the very mention of the word sometimes causes eyelids to droop. Not so with Donna Tompkins, Vice Principal. When she discusses grants, her eyes light up. This is not surprising when one learns that Mrs. Tompkins has brought over half a million dollars in grant money to Delone Catholic over the last three school years.
Her success in obtaining grants was not something Mrs. Tompkins herself could have predicted. She had no background in the area. “I’m a math teacher,” she said. Even after she became Vice Principal in 2017, she did not give any thought to grants until the fall semester of 2020, when she began her one-year tenure as interim Principal. “This was the first year of Covid,” said Mrs. Tompkins, recalling the tough year of adjusting to the new position while working in completely uncharted territory to develop a pandemic response plan. As interim Principal, information came across her desk that she would not otherwise have seen, including information on available grants.
As it turns out, Mrs. Tompkins was a quick study. When she saw the Safe Schools Grant application, it was an easy decision to act on it. Her immediate predecessor, Richard La Rocca, had contracted with a risk management consultant to perform a risk assessment of the school. The information gained from the risk assessment had set the table nicely for her to identify and itemize expenditures that fit well within the parameters of the grant. During the 2020-21 school year, Delone Catholic was awarded $5,200, a respectable sum for the school’s first-time application. After completing follow-up questions to demonstrate how effectively the school met its goals, she applied again the next year, and the school was awarded $18,000. “Okay,” she thought, “I know how this works now.”
To date, Mrs. Tompkins has brought in over $70,000 in Safe Schools grants. All around the school, one can find evidence of this grant money doing its work, from glass entrance doors now clad in sharp-looking security film emblazoned with a Squire logo design (adding the design was Mrs. Tompkins idea) to surveillance cameras throughout the building.
It was Covid, though, that opened up significant grant opportunities for the school. In February 2021, Mrs. Tompkins was contacted by Lisa Menges of the Lincoln Intermediate Unit, a governmental entity that serves as a liaison between the Pennsylvania Department of Education and public and non-public schools located within the jurisdiction of the Unit. She informed Mrs. Tompkins about Covid-related grants from a federal program called Emergency Assistance to Non-public Schools (EANS). “The most we could ask for was $13,800,” said Mrs. Tompkins, referring to the formula under which EANS grant money was distributed.
She vividly remembers the day when she received news of the award. “It was the last day of school, and we had just had our ending ceremony, and we were on our way to the year-end faculty luncheon. I stopped by my office and I had an email from Lisa.” When she saw the amount of the award, $431,000, Mrs. Tompkins assumed the same email had been sent to all the schools in the Adams Deanery, and the large dollar figure represented the aggregate amount awarded to all of the schools. Just to make sure, she called Lisa Menges. Mrs. Tompkins remembers her surprising response. “‘No, Donna, you asked for $13,800 and they gave you $431,000.’” Recalls Mrs. Tompkins, “I was almost in tears.”
She had a year and a half to figure out how to spend the money. Mrs Tompkins pulls up pages of spreadsheets itemizing all the grant-related purchases and names a few: “cabinets for storing cleaning supplies, “interactive projectors for the classrooms,” “tables for the library for social distancing,” “Tony [Poist ’78, Facilities Manager] was able to get every floor cleaning machine you could possibly imagine.” Because the grant could be used to reimburse the school for prior Covid-related expenditures, the grant award freed up money that could be spent for non-grant related purposes. This past year, she was informed that there was more EANS money available. She applied and got an additional $68,000.
Hoping to learn the skills that produced such prodigious sums, colleagues began asking if they could sit in while she completed a grant application. Mrs. Tompkins was bemused. “I’m like, sit-in? Sure. But there’s nothing really to sit in for. I just answer the questions and ask individuals for an itemized budget for any requests.”
To what, then, does Mrs. Tompkins attribute her success? By way of answer, she recounts an anecdote. “Ten years ago, my daughter and I walked in the Susan Komen Walk, which was a 60-mile, over three days, breast cancer walk. In order to walk, you have to raise $2,500 each. And that was the point in my life when I realized, it never hurts to ask.”
“It never hurts to ask,” has become her mantra and is the reason, she believes, for her success in another initiative, the college partnerships program. Her predecessor, Mr. La Rocca, a natural networker, had entered into an agreement with Mount St. Mary’s University, under which a graduating senior from Delone Catholic who met certain academic thresholds would receive guaranteed admission to Mount St. Mary’s and a four-year scholarship award.
Mrs. Tompkins was inspired by the idea. “I googled ‘Catholic schools in the northeast,’ and I just started reaching out to these people.” As a result of her efforts, Delone Catholic has now entered into similar agreements with 29 colleges and universities, making college more accessible and affordable for Delone Catholic graduates. This year, Mrs. Tompkins has expanded the program, seeking tuition breaks for faculty who want to continue their education. Three institutions have already agreed to these tuition discounts.
What lies ahead? Mrs. Tompkins is already preparing an application for the Safe Schools grant for the upcoming year. Her wish list includes security cameras and lighting, health supplies, re-keying interior doors, and speed bumps in the parking lot. The grant rules have changed and Mrs. Tompkins is not sure if the process will be as easy this time. Nevertheless, she views the situation with equanimity. “It never hurts to ask,” she says. “The worst they can do is say, ‘no.’”
