15 minute read
Financial Report… 3
Assets
Cash & Cash Equivalents Funds on Deposit with CENGI Accounts Receivable, Net Beneficial Interest in Assets Held by Foundation Property and Equipment, Net Other
Total Assets
Liabilities
Accounts Payable & Accrued Expenses Tuition & Fees, Received in Advance Loan Payable
Total Liabilities
34,241,020.54
Net Assets
Without Donor Restrictions With Donor Restrictions
Total Net Assets
23,343,079.90 (2,380,713.03)
20,962,366.87
Total Liabilities & Net Assets 34,241,020.54
Christen Aquino ‘05
Spiritual Formation
Christen Aquino, Class of 2005, lives the mission statement pillar of Spiritual Formation every day as the Director of New Evangelization for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.
“We want every parish to be on mission and every parishioner to be a missionary disciple,” Aquino said. “We want to foster communion for the sake of the mission and the mission for the sake of communion.”
Aquino credits Blessed Trinity as a central moment of her Catholic faith, specifically Father Tim Hepburn and her freshman seminar class.
“It got me going to confession regularly,” she said. “He started XLT in the theater. I went to the first one and that was life changing because it helped me recognize that Jesus is present in the Eucharist.”
After attending Elon University, Aquino moved back to Atlanta where she worked in youth ministry. She then attended the University of Dayton for graduate school.
“I wrestled with the Lord about it for six months, and He made it abundantly clear in June of 2016 that that’s what I was supposed to do.”
She continues to build on that central moment in her daily work in Cincinnati.
“Our team is looking at some of the best practices in evangelization,” she said.
One such method is pedagogy. “Is the classroom the best way to engage young people in the faith and learning, or should there be an emphasis on how we support the family to do that?” She asks. “Then we train and equip the adults that are working with young people.”
Aquino hopes that this introspective will help create more encounters with the Lord that lead to the desire to be missionary disciples who radiate Christ.
While she is not exclusively working with youth anymore, Aquino hopes that young people understand that “faith is a journey and that everyone’s journey is different.”
She encourages them to “actively seek out the Lord. He is not too small for your questions, and He’s not afraid of your questions.”
Spiritual Formation
The Class of 2021 was responsible for, or part of, many firsts while at Blessed Trinity Catholic High School. Among those firsts was the Kairos Retreat Program. Alex Garrot was a founding member of Kairos.
“It was really awesome,” he said. “Hopefully they can do two or three per year. The leadership team provides great practice for juniors and seniors above and beyond the regular retreatant.”
Alex was appreciative of programs like Kairos and Ignite, but said having a chapel, daily Mass and access to a chaplain was instrumental in his faith formation.
Garrot wasn’t always as active in his faith, though. Like many, he struggled to grasp things about the Mass.
“The instruction and wisdom that I got, especially from Father Tran, has really enriched how I pray and how I go to Mass. I look forward to those things now because I understand it,” he said.
Garrot ties his faith into all aspects of his life. He uses it to overcome obstacles and setbacks.
Transforming lives in Christ is the cornerstone of the Blessed Trinity mission statement. It anchors the four pillars of Spiritual Formation, Academic Excellence, Artistic Sensibility and Athletic Achievement.
Garrot said that Blessed Trinity does a great job of making that transformation available.
“I’ve met a lot of people at BT who are on fire,” he said, “They attract a lot of attention in that way because they’re so happy and joyful, no matter what happens. I keep looking for those ‘on fire’ people.”
Alex said two of his favorite classes were World Religions and Apologetics.
“Apologetics gets you to think in a different way,” he said. “World Religions hit home with me because it gives you a better understanding of how the rest of the world is and how to really live a life of love. We’re all people; there’s no reason to alienate people because of their beliefs.”
Garrot feels prepared to enter college with this understanding and world view. He is attending the University of Georgia.
He plans to seek out the Catholic community in Athens.
“I’m excited to get plugged in over there,” he said. “I’m not going to graduate from (my faith).”
Huiet Joseph ‘16
Academic Excellence
Six years ago, Huiett Joseph was graduating from Blessed Trinity and was ready to go to Morehouse College.
Heading into his first semester at Morehouse, Joseph knew that his academic career was going to be successful.
“I tried to pick a school that was like Blessed Trinity in that they would nurture me and point me in the direction that is best for me,” Joseph said.
He graduated from Morehouse with a degree in Chemistry as the salutatorian of his class, the second highest GPA amongst his classmates.
Joseph attributes his academic success to his time spent in Margaret Ward’s Chemistry class.
“Compared to Mrs. Ward’s Chemistry class, (college) was about the same,” he said. “It was a grind from start to finish, but rewarding at the same time.”
Joseph said his whole first year of Chemistry was a review of Ward’s high school class. “It was a cakewalk, comparatively. Mrs. Ward did a great job of pushing the boundaries of what we know.”
He didn’t stop there, crediting the A/B block schedule students experience all four years at Blessed Trinity as a mimic of the college schedule.
Since his graduation from Morehouse, Joseph has enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania to pursue a medical degree and become an orthopedic surgeon.
“That goal developed while I was at Morehouse,” Joseph said. “They matched me up with an orthopedic surgeon, and I fell in love with what he did.”
He spent the summer of 2021 shadowing orthopedic surgeons in the Atlanta area and worked on a research project with one of them.
While he knows the importance of academics, Joseph emphasizes that his success would not have come were it not for his involvement in extracurricular activities while at Blessed Trinity.
The former Titans football, wrestling and lacrosse player said, “If I focus solely on academics, my performance suffers. At BT, I played all sorts of sports and was on the robotics team. At Morehouse, I was in the Band.”
Academic Excellence
Ron Miller embodies Academic Excellence as the valedictorian of the Class of 2021.
“Mr. Moses does this thing freshman year where he tries to guess who the valedictorian would be and he told me it wasn’t going to be me,” Miller said. “Then I had him for Comparative (Government) and I brought it up! I think him saying that made me want to prove him wrong.”
Miller earned an appointment to the United States Naval Academy. “I think BT did its best to prepare me,” Miller said, “although I don’t think anything can prepare you perfectly for this.”
He credits his time spent on the cross country and track teams as good preparation for the physical challenges that he will face in Annapolis, Maryland, and the block scheduling as good preparation for the academic schedule he will experience in college.
Mrs. Ward’s AP Chemistry class, while rigorous, was Miller’s favorite class.
“It’s a different community and you can’t explain it unless you’re in it,” Miller said. “You all have to deal with impossible tests, grades and problems. You skip lunch every other day. It built a different community that I wouldn’t give up for anything.”
Ron also credits the dedication of Amy Muller, math teacher, with helping him achieve the title of valedictorian. He even chose Muller as his STAR Teacher, for which she was recognized at the annual awards assembly.
“I had her from sophomore year to senior year,” Miller said, “I always came in and she was there for me willing to help in anyway possible. She is like a parent figure.”
He was involved in multiple clubs while at Blessed Trinity and said he balanced school, sports and clubs one at a time.
“You work with what you have and take the problems as they come,” Miller said.
Ron has spent his entire academic career on the Roswell campus, attending preschool at St. Peter Chanel and attending Queen of Angels from kindergarten through eighth Grade.
“Coming from that middle school, a lot of things changed, but a lot of things changed for the better.”
Artistic Sensibility
Jack Brinsmaid embodies the Blessed Trinity Mission Statement pillar of Artistic Sensibility as a musical theatre actor in New York City.
Brinsmaid got his start in musical theatre at a young age. “The musical theatre director in middle school told me I should audition when I reach sixth grade.”
The transition from middle school theatre to high school theatre was seamless.
“One of the main reasons I went to BT was because I went to their summer theatre camps with Allan Dodson,” Brinsmaid said. “It was one of my favorite experiences.”
Jack starred in multiple plays and musicals while at Blessed Trinity, most notably the lead role of Pippin in Pippin.
“One of my favorite productions we did was Noises Off, which is a British farce, and I had never thought of myself as a comedic actor,” he said. “It was so much fun with a bunch of high schoolers doing British accents.”
He was pleasantly surprised with how his accent turned out, saying it was pretty good, but having since been professionally trained, he thinks otherwise.
In addition to his education, Brinsmaid said he met many great people and made many connections with people who were “truly my best friends throughout high school.”
His theatre career progressed beyond Blessed Trinity. “I applied to a lot of schools as a senior and got into six of them, including NYU.”
Brinsmaid attended NYU because he believes choosing a university is about more than its reputation.
Jack made the transition from acting to musical theatre in his junior year of college. He worked on a new musical about the mythological story of Medusa and the classic, Tuck Everlasting.
“I enjoyed working on both of them,” he said, “but there’s something about working on a new work. There’s a lot of experimenting and you get to play with the character more.”
The Class of 2015 graduate was featured in the Broadway Rising Stars show at Town Hall in 2019.
“It was a lot of fun,” Brinsmaid said. He performed Corner of the Sky from Pippin. “I performed a song I had sung four years earlier, in high school, which was a cool full-circle event.”
Artistic Sensibility
When you walk through the halls of Blessed Trinity, you are treated to the wonderful works of art produced by our students.
Many pieces over the last four years were created by Emma Ferrante.
Emma credits the Head of the Fine Arts Department, Sharon Mueller, as an inspiration to pursue art.
“I had a special relationship with Mrs. Mueller,” Ferrante said. “She thought I was really stubborn, which I was, but she was trying hard to work with me so that I could reach my full potential. I don’t think I would be studying art in college if it wasn’t for her.” Emma is attending college at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, and feels prepared to study art at the collegiate level.
“My art teacher has not accepted everything I’ve painted as being good enough. It sounds harsh, but it wasn’t doubt, it was tough love.”
Ferrante, under Mueller’s guidance, stepped out of her comfort zone to create portraits and landscapes. She felt an emotional connection to many of her works. “I did a portrait of my mom holding a picture I drew of her when I was four years old,” she said. She was also able to express her relationship with God through her art.
“I made a piece on Jesus,” Ferrante said, “I was able to put that idea on canvas and show that to other people. It was humbling to see that other people could be moved by that too.”
She describes the feeling of having her art on display as surreal. “It was weird seeing people looking at my art and my descriptions and complementing me. It felt very vulnerable to put all my thoughts, emotions and ideas in front of hundreds of people, but it ended up being cool to hear people want to take that class or try painting those too and explore their potential like I did.” Ferrante said she has always been connected to nature. That connection, along with her faith, provides her with constant inspiration. Emma’s definition and understanding of art grew during her time at Blessed Trinity.
“I always thought painting was making pretty pictures with colors, but this year in AP art, everything needed a meaning and purpose behind it,” she said. Outside of school, Ferrante has experienced the professional world of art. “It was a gradual thing,” she said, “It was just the way I like to have fun. My parents helped me realize that my work was worth something more. It’s been a big blessing.” Ferrante sells pieces at art shows and online on sites like etsy.com (search for ArtByEmmaFerrante).
Athletic Achievement
Elizabeth Walker is not a traditional athlete. The Class of 2005 graduate embodies Athletic Achievement through an extreme sport: mountain biking. Walker has been an avid mountain biker since college.
“I started working at a rock climbing gym. When you live in that area of western North Carolina, to enjoy that part of the country and that geography, you have to be outdoorsy,” she said. “I had some friends take me mountain biking for the first time on my 21st birthday, and I was terrified, and it was also a massive thrill.”
She took that thrill and made it into a career.
“It takes up every part of my life. I manage a team of professional athletes, both LIV Racing as well as Giant Offroad Team. Giant and LIV are sibling brands. I work with both teams and we take our athletes all over the world. I have an athlete in Tokyo right now that we’re super pumped about competing in the women’s Olympic cross country distance.”
Liz manages three global teams with million dollar budgets every year. “These athletes are the best in the world, so they’re located everywhere. I have French, Swiss, Irish, American, South African and Australian athletes.” Walker takes care of all the travel needs of the athletes and can be on a call any hour of the day coordinating with her cyclists. “It’s a 5,000 piece puzzle that feels like a feat.”
Walker has a diverse and complex team working under her at competitions. “I have athletes, mechanics, team physios and a performance coach. The way that we’ve set up our team, the physios double as the cooks.”
Liz directs the day-to-day team operations at competitions. “At a competition, the Union Cycliste Internationale puts out the schedule for mountain bike racing.” This includes when tracks open for training and walkthrough, as well as posted race times. “There are age segments like U18, U23 and Elite. There’s this massive schedule that comes out, so it’s my job to make sure where everyone is supposed to show up and the time they’re supposed to be there and to liaise between the athletes and the mechanics.”
Walker’s position takes her all over the world. “We have an office in Austria, which I’m at quite often. I’ve been to Germany, Czech Republic, France and Italy.” While the team competes mostly in Europe, they will be competing in Brazil, Australia and New Zealand in 2022.
Outside of her cycling teams and responsibilities, Walker is adjunct faculty at Colorado Mountain College Leadville. “This summer, we have a partnership with the Air Force Academy cadets who are doing a character and leadership training. It’s a really humbling partnership that CMC has with the Academy.” Liz spent 12 days this summer leading a mountain bike skills training for 30 cadets to help them become good leaders and mountain bikers.
During her time at Blessed Trinity, though, cycling wasn’t anywhere on her radar.
“I played basketball and softball. Softball was my main sport. I threw shot put and discus. I was a very traditional athlete,” Walker said. “I played softball for 10 months out of the year, and that took up all my time. My brother would go mountain biking on Boy Scout trips, and I never understood it. I gave up bikes when I discovered boys and cars when I was 12.” It took nine more years for her to find her calling.
