ENDOWED SCHOLARSHIP PROFILE Mr. Garrow understood—and this planted the seed for us. This gave us some hope.” Hope Appears: The RAMS Program The RAMS Program at Central Catholic launched in 2015 and the Harts kept in touch with Mr. Garrow, continuing their dialogue about how to best serve their son. In the meantime, they opted to homeschool Joey during his eighth grade year. John Hart said, “We knew Joey was not a typical RAMS student. The RAMS students are more high-functioning. We knew that it was ‘out of the box’ to believe that Joey could be a part of the RAMS Program. And, several other parish schools we’d reached out to hadn’t even returned our calls.” Michelle continued, “So we went in to talk with Mr. Garrow, and Mary Mauldin was there, and she said, ‘Oh, of course we can take him. We have to take Joey.’” [Mary (Wilson) Mauldin ’10 is the former RAMS Program Coordinator.]
Joey with his Peer Mentors and another student in the RAMS Program.
The Hart Family RAMS Peer Mentor Endowed Scholarship The Journey “Why did it have to hurt so much?” Michelle Hart poses the anguished question. John and Michelle Hart’s journey to find the right educational setting for their son, Joey ‘23, has been a roller-coaster ride. Joey is profoundly disabled from the aftereffects of severe epileptic seizures he has suffered since the age of five months. The program offered by their neighborhood school wasn’t a fit.
John added, “We reached out to other programs, and they had all the reasons why taking Joey wouldn’t work. But Mary’s attitude was completely different. Rather than just seeing obstacles, Mary came from the mindset of possibility.” So, Joey Hart, following in the footsteps of his older brothers, Chris ’13 and Matthew ’15, became a student at Central Catholic High School. He joined the Class of 2023, enrolling in the RAMS Program in the fall of 2019. Michelle remembers, “On the first day of school, our two older sons both happened to be in town that day, and they went to the Back to School Mass with Joey. All of the teachers, who of course already knew Joey, came up and thanked them, saying, ‘Thank you for letting us have Joey here.’ It just kept being reaffirmed to us. This is where Joey belongs.”
Michelle recalls, “He was in a classroom at the end of the hall, strapped into his chair so that he wouldn’t fall out. There was no interaction with the student body; none whatsoever. Wanting more for Joey, we attempted to put him in our parish school, where we were told they could make it work, with special supports for him in the classroom. That didn’t work either. Some parents of the other students didn’t want that for their children. We were told ‘they didn’t want him there.’” She pauses. “There have been a few times in our journey with Joey when words just stick in my brain, and they don’t leave. This was one of them. They didn’t want him there. It just hurt so much.” Taking a deep breath, she continued, “So, I reached out to Jeanne Loftis, who I knew from our Mom’s group and who had been through a similar experience with her son (also named Joey), and I asked her, ‘How did you survive this?’ “Jeanne told me, ‘You trust the Holy Spirit. And you need to talk to Central Catholic because they GET IT.’ “We had talked with Central Catholic’s principal, Mr. Garrow (John Garrow ’76) years earlier, when the RAMS program was still just an idea,” Michelle recalled. “He asked us, ‘What does Joey need?’ I told him, ‘He just needs to be loved.’ 14 | Central Catholic Magazine
Joey Hart ‘23 with former RAMS Program Coordinator Mary (Wilson) Mauldin ‘10 outside on Harrington Field.
