CV NEWS FEED // Ohio-based Franciscan University has received a multi-million dollar gift to fund a program in Washington, DC, where students will receive training about how to engage in politics and legislation.
Ward and Kathy Fitzgerald donated the gift, which totaled $10 million. The funding is “aimed at preparing, connecting, and engaging students in the political and cultural work of Washington, D.C.,” the university’s website states.
Franciscan University President Fr. Dave Pivonka said, “Ward and Kathy Fitzgerald share Franciscan University’s zeal for the Gospel, and they have a special concern for the spiritually poor in the corridors of power.”
“Their generous gift will enable Franciscan to form students and others called to bring the heart of Jesus to the public processes in the important arena of our nation’s capital,” he added.
The Ward and Kathy Fitzgerald Franciscan University Homeland Mission (FUHM) will give Franciscan students the opportunity to “participate fully at the highest levels of the legislative process,” the website continues, “with missionary zeal and faith-formed minds and hearts.”
The gift allowed the college to acquire property in D.C. for dormitories and classrooms and established an endowment to fund the FUHM’s operations and programs.
Noting that Franciscan’s “Gospel-infused core values” and Catholic Social Teaching will be applied in the engagement, the website states, “Programs and events at the FUHM will challenge students to work and witness for ongoing, systematic change in federal government, placing the sacred human dignity of all people at the center of the work.”
Kathy and Ward Fitzgerald are members of the Trustees to the Papal Foundation. They earned the title of Knight and Dame Grand Cross in the Order of St. Gregory the Great after Ward served as a vice chair for the 2015 World Meeting of Families.
Ward is also the founder of Exeter Property Group, which he established through Kathy’s support. He is the current CEO of an international real estate private equity fund investment group called EQT Exeter.
The couple engages in philanthropic work for “the Church, Catholic education, homelessness, poverty, addiction, children abused and trafficked in Mexico, and medical research,” Franciscan’s website states.
Kathy stated, “We have been provided great Providence to be able to be vessels of the Holy Spirit by participating with such a worthy University and its students, faculty, and administration. We are too well mindful that nothing we have created or hold is our own but graces and gifts from Our Lord to do his work.”
