Progress Report: Organizational Matters

Today at Queen of Peace Catholic Church in Ocala, FL we will have a solemn high Mass for the Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary. Surely it will be through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary as Queen of the Angels that Collegium sanctorum angelorum will be successful. (By the way, if you are in the area, we will sing Mass IX, the Proper chants of the day, the Ave Maria of Marcel Dupré, and the hymn setting of Ave maris stella of Dufay.)

My progress report: As of this writing, the plan is for Collegium sanctorum angelorum to consist of three separate but related organizations: Holy Angels Ministries, Holy Angels Online Academy, and the college itself.

Holy Angels Ministries was formally organized on January 6, 2015, the feast of the Epiphany. The application for its 501c3 non-profit status was filed on February 20, 2015 and is pending. Holy Angels Ministries will be a thrift conglomerate that will include a standard thrift store, a salvage department, a little more upscale (and/or EBay) department, a religious articles department and one more department to be named. It will look a little like this:

Ostensibly, its purpose will be to provide financial support for the college.

We will need about $40,000 to open a leased store front. To raise that money and to get our feet wet in the business we are organizing a few “yard sales” that are being hosted by Queen of Peace Catholic Church in Ocala, FL. The first sale netted a little over $3,000. In addition, another $1,400 was donated in cash gifts. The next sale will be December 4.

We also have a GoFundMe site: gofundme.com/nopud0. We have collected a few hundred dollars there, and you are most welcome to add to the contributions.

There are volunteers looking into the details of the salvage business, others looking into the details of the religious articles business, and yet others looking into the mystery business.

These are very humble beginnings, but we must remember that Christ’s earthly ministry, too, had a very humble beginning. I am not naïve to the fact that a greater infusion of capital will be necessary. Rather, I am confident that if this is God’s work, He will provide the resources we need. (If you believe that this is God’s work, you can help Him provide some of those resources, contact me at edwardschaefer@collegiumsanctorumangelorum.org.)

We expect the store to be open and functioning smoothly by 2017 at the latest, maybe sooner.

Holy Angels Online Academy was formally organized on April 13, 2015. Its application for 501c3 status was approved on July 27, 2015. Holy Angels Online Academy will provide online instruction to support traditional Catholic homeschooling families. The Academy will support the college in two ways. First, it will provide a pathway for students wishing to come to the college that will insure a preparation that is sufficient to handle the challenges of the college curriculum. Second, its revenues will provide financial support for the college.

The courses themselves will be unique, also in two ways. First, their faith orientation will be unabashedly traditionally Catholic. Second, they will take advantage of the best pedagogical thinking with regard to online instruction. While the courses will be live and synchronous, they will not be the “lecture and regurgitate” model that is too typical in online instruction. I have personally overseen the development and implementation of three graduate programs and many more undergraduate courses. We are applying that experience and engaging instructional designers to make sure that these courses will offer both exceptional education and engaging experiences.

We are offering only one course this fall, 9th-grade religion. This course will allow us to establish the needed infrastructure with a small group. Courses will be added each year.

We are sponsoring a webinar to introduce parents to the course on Monday, August 17 at 8:00PM eastern time. Watch the home page of the college website (www.collegiumsanctorumangelorum.org or www.holyangelsonlineacademy.org) for details, and let folks know.

Collegium sanctorum angelorum was formally organized on June 20, 2015. The application for 501c3 non-profit status was filed on July 29, 2015 and is pending. We are currently refining plans for the curriculum, the site, and an agricultural component of the college. I’ll describe all of these in more detail in future updates. In a future update, I will also explain how all of these elements, along with others, will come together to keep the cost of the college affordable.

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