When Ben Cascarano, 28, transferred to Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, he didn’t know what to expect, but he certainly didn’t know he would grow in his faith, embrace a community that he hadn’t realized he needed and forge lifelong friendships, even after he graduated and returned home to Lisle, Ill.

When catastrophic events interrupt people’s lives that were just making it, everything changes. A chasm opens, and stretching a budget from week to week and month to month becomes impossible.

Everyone who has ever sent a child to a Catholic school knows it’s a struggle to pay tuition.
Norkisha Epps knows this because she works two jobs to send her children to Sister Thea Bowman Catholic School in East St. Louis, and she is beginning to see the fruits of her labors.