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The Boston College Irish Famine Memorial Fund
The
BOSTON COLLEGE Irish Famine Memorial Fund
Thomas Flatley at the Boston College President’s Circle Dinner in 1990.
PHOTO CREDIT: Gary Wayne Gilbert
Peter G. Martin
BC’s Irish Famine Memorial Fund (IFMF) has been creating opportunity and changing lives all over the world since its establishment in 2010. The following several pages, adapted from the forthcoming history of the fund, describe the IFMF’s origins and illustrate the impact of several of its grants and scholarships.
Ssince 2010, the Irish Famine Memorial Fund, a gift to Boston College from Thomas J. Flatley (1931–2008) and his family, has supported the efforts of Boston College alumni and others to alleviate poverty, disease, famine, and illiteracy around the world. The fund has enabled nearly 200 students from 51 nations and six continents to study at Boston College and return to their home countries better equipped to help address various social, health, and educational problems. In addition, the IFMF has provided more than $3 million for projects to construct schools in impoverished communities, provide clean water and sanitation, and develop transitional housing in 17 countries, including the United States. The fund has also made grants to young alumni from Boston College and other universities, supporting them in their desires to engage the world and put Jesuit, Catholic ideals of “men and women for others” into action.
Thomas Flatley came to the United States from his native Ireland as an 18-year-old with all of $32 to his name. After his own stint in the U.S. Army, he made use of the G.I. Bill to gain his plumber’s, electrician’s, and builder’s licenses. Thus began one of the most impressive real estate development careers in Boston annals. The Flatley Co. eventually accumulated assets of more than $1 billion, and Flatley became a significant figure in Boston’s business community and a legendary, if humble and quiet, philanthropist.
Although he was immersed in business ventures and never pursued higher education himself, Flatley gained an appreciation for Boston College not long after he
began his ascent in business. He was already familiar with BC by reputation, as the University’s ties to Boston’s Irish-American community were strong. However, what deepened Flatley’s relationship with Boston College more than anything else were the BC alumni in the Boston area who became his business associates and friends over the years.
In 1990, Flatley established an endowed faculty chair in the Boston College Theology Department in honor of his mother, Margaret, an indication of the importance he placed on BC’s spiritual mission. Indeed, conversations about Flatley with his friends and family frequently include references to his strong faith. A daily communicant for much of his life, he always kept his eye on the transcendent. Boston College President Fr. William Leahy, S.J., describes an intensity to Flatley’s devotion. “He used to say that his one goal in life was to get to heaven and take as many people with him as he could,” Fr. Leahy remembers. Cardinal Archbishop of Boston Sean O’Malley, who celebrated Flatley’s funeral Mass, said that the witness of Flatley’s Catholic life—“the centrality of the Eucharist, his spirituality, and the strong family life that he lived and witnessed to—is a legacy that the Archdiocese of Boston will always cherish.”
The value Flatley placed on his native country, opportunity, and the Catholic Church led directly to the establishment of the Irish Famine Memorial Fund in 2009. Longtime BC administrator Jim McIntyre recounted that, as the years went by, he understood that Flatley might want to make a significant, long-term gift consistent with his core beliefs, in addition to all that he had already done for Boston College and other causes. In the 1990s, he had created and led a committee to fund the Boston Irish Famine Memorial, a monument unveiled in 1998 honoring famine victims and immigrants to the United States from Ireland. The memory of the Irish potato famine of the 1840s had loomed large in the Ireland of Flatley’s youth. As described by Cecil Woodham-Smith in her landmark history, The Great Hunger, “in the space of five years, more than a million Irish died of starvation and Irish emigrants by the hundreds of thousands sailed for the United States and Canada.” Those who survived the trans-Atlantic journey arrived with nothing. While they had many challenges ahead of them in the United States, including a virulently anti-Catholic society, they did find opportunity—and they made the most of it.
Thomas Flatley’s son Dan recalls that his father believed that the pain, suffering, and death of the famine was the type of adversity that could have affected the people of any nation. “He saw a little bit of the Irish in people everywhere,” Dan said. “My father wanted to give folks a chance to help themselves and to help their communities.” As he explains, “In the end, he believed that everyone simply deserved an opportunity, just as those Irish emigrants received when they came to the United States, even as so many of their countrymen perished.” Discussions among Flatley, McIntyre, and Fr. Leahy soon led them to create a fund that would memorialize the victims of the Great Hunger by providing opportunity for individuals from any nation or culture experiencing hardship, especially poverty, hunger, and illiteracy. The Irish Famine Memorial Fund would “remind current and future generations at Boston College of the sacrifices of the millions of Irish who died in the 1840s and 1850s,” as the IFMF’s founding document puts it.
The IFMF’s connections to the Church were central from the beginning. Flatley saw the Church as God’s instrument on earth to help bring human potential to fruition, and he was not afraid to say so. He said he wanted the fund established “in the name of God and his son Jesus Christ” to remind people that the Church was a “great refuge for many Irish immigrants and their descendants …”
From the beginning, the priorities of the IFMF have been: “1) to provide financial assistance to foreign or domestic students enrolled at Boston College who agree to return to their home area or country to use their education to advance their fellow citizens; 2) to provide financial assistance to … undergraduate students to participate in volunteer activities with the poor in foreign countries or in the United States; 3) to provide financial or material support to alumni and other individuals associated with Boston College who are committed to alleviating poverty, disease, famine, and illiteracy in foreign countries or in the United States …; 4) to support other activities or projects which are deemed within the spirit of the Irish Famine Memorial at Boston College …” From the outset, the committee was aware of worthy causes for funding, some of which had been brought to Fr. Leahy’s attention by various colleagues and petitioners. Those numbers have increased significantly as news of the fund spread over the years. ■ c21 resources | spring/summer 2022 21
Non-Profit Glorious Invests in the Future
in 2015, bc alumnae Katie Carey Nivard ’09 and Hannah Ames Beavers ’09 approached the IFMF with a proposal that Carey called a “game-changing program to engage the next generation of leaders from Boston College.” The two had developed a partnership with an impressive school and orphanage in Tanzania, where both women first volunteered as recent BC graduates. While they were volunteers, the founder of the school, Alice Mathew, was feeding orphaned children in her backyard. Since those early days, she has built what is now a top-ranked school and educational hub serving over 300 children ages 3–15. Her story of resilience and commitment to her community aligned closely with the IFMF philosophy that Carey and Ames had learned about through their time at BC: that people with commitment serving local communities can drive lasting economic and social change. They were inspired to help Mathew succeed, and to help others in the BC community connect to make an impact themselves.
First, they established Glorious, a U.S. nonprofit, to provide direct financial support to Mathew and related causes. Then, they partnered with Mama Hope, an education-focused nonprofit, and with the Irish Famine Memorial Fund to build the Global Advocate Fellowship Program. This immersive nine-month training program was designed to develop the next generation of young leaders, often graduates of Boston College or other Jesuit universities. The advocates first participated in an intensive entrepreneurship course that required participants to raise at least $20,000 for a community-identified, sustainable project in the developing world. They worked with local entrepreneurs to understand the project impact and to raise funds to help bring it to fruition. They then traveled to live in the community and to build out the program. Projects ranged from school facilities to farming projects and beyond. Over 2015–2019, IFMF’s grants to Glorious funded the training and deployment of 34 advocates who undertook 40 projects.
Many talented BC alumni have become global advocates. Katie Remy, BC Class of ’11, moved from investment banking to philanthropy. She joined the program and raised funds for the construction of Glorious’s school campus and accompanying school shops. Nicole Sullivan ’13 left her job at GE and subsequently raised $20,123 to fund a solar-powered computer lab in Moshi, Tanzania. Marisa Maneri ’16 obtained $20,500 from donors to help complete construction of a boarding home at St. Timothy’s parish and school, also in Tanzania. The parish was able to take in 50 new boarding students because of the project, creating a revenue stream to fund various parish and school activities. BC alumnus Kevin Burg ’18 was excited to bring the lessons he had learned at Boston College into international service. At BC, Burg said he and his classmates had learned to “examine justice far beyond our own little bubbles.” He raised $20,862 for the construction of the much-needed United Hearts Nursery School in Bawjiase, Ghana, and spent three months working in the children’s center there. While the Global Advocates program had no official religious affiliation, Burg said he found the program to be Ignatian at its heart. It embodied Jesuit social justice principles on the “global stage,” he said.
Tom Flatley would have liked the Global Advocate business model: $350,000 of grant money from the fund led to over $680,000 raised by the advocates for 40 projects in 17 communities in Ecuador, Guatemala, India, Ghana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. Moreover, the majority of global advocates have pursued careers in service or development work. Marisa Maneri, for example, went on to work for Kickstart International, a nonprofit in Nairobi that designs climate-smart irrigation technology for farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. She is now a leadership giving officer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. After working in Kisumu, Kenya, Megan Sonier ’16 joined Geneva Global, a philanthropy consulting company. Similarly, after serving as an advocate in Guatemala, Tessa Peoples, also Class of 2016, is now working at the Council for Relationships, a mental health nonprofit. Jackson Pellegrini, former advocate and BC Class of 2018, now works at Accion, a global nonprofit committed to creating a financially inclusive world, with a pioneering legacy in microfinance and fintech impact investing. By 2019, the Global Advocate venture had touched an estimated 32,000 people’s lives through its work.
Glorious’s vision was to set in motion a movement toward greater global connectivity, compassion, and justice. Since 2020 and the onset of the pandemic, both Glorious and its local partners have had to adapt and pivot. In one small example, its partner, Suubi, a maternal health center in Uganda, had to become a COVID treatment and care facility servicing a community of over 200,000. As a result, Glorious has shifted its focus to double down on directly supporting partner organizations working on the frontlines of our world’s most challenging issues. While much about the future is uncertain, Glorious and the work of its partners continues. ■
Inspiring the Next Generation
BC Connell School of Nursing student making a home visit to a patient during a Dominican Republic Service Immersion trip.
in keeping with the IFMF’s original commitment to supporting BC undergraduates’ volunteerism, the fund has supported several programs that have inspired the next generation to pursue service initiatives. In 2011, colleagues in the Dominican Republic (DR) reached out to the IFMF to discuss the establishment of a program in the DR that would provide healthcare, education, and cultural exchange between BC nursing students and the residents of poor communities in that country. The students would engage in “teaching projects” in response to medical issues identified and requested by the communities. With that template in place, the Connell School of Nursing (CSON) has completed seven group trips over the years that have made significant contributions to the lives of the people of San Pedro de Macoris, La Chachena, and Communidad Experimental, Dominican Republic. Julia O’Brien, CSON ’20, applied to take part in an immersion trip in January 2020 to combine her passions for service and for nursing. She did not simply improve her nursing skills but also considered larger healthcare issues. “Our work in the communities confirmed my desire to work with vulnerable populations,” she told BC administrators recently, adding that, “It also helped us to reflect upon larger questions of equality and healthcare policy generally.”
“It gives me great pleasure to see how this program has grown,” says CSON’s Rosemary F. Byrne, RN, who has developed the immersion trip since its creation. She notes that, by design, the group returns to the same two communities each year. This continuity has helped BC nurses and students build trust and relationships that have increased their effectiveness. Byrne reports that the visitors have seen improvement in the general health of the communities they are serving each year. “There is so much that remains undone,” however, Byrne cautions. With the exception of the most recent hiatus due to COVID- 19, the IFMF has continued to fund the trip every year. “It is through being ‘men and women for others’ that we are able to practice social justice both here in the United States and in the Dominican Republic,” Byrne concludes. ■
Leadership and Vision in Uganda
the ifmf committee has observed since the fund’s inception that effective leadership is often the key to success in development projects. When asked for an example, committee members all mention Fr. Emmanuel Mwerekande. Fr. Mwerekande guides Our Lady of Fatima parish, which covers some 30 square miles and has more than 60,000 parishioners, 53 sub-churches, and 23 Catholic schools serving children of all religious backgrounds in Mubende, Uganda.
The Boston College community became familiar with Fr. Mwerekande while he was studying for a master’s degree in pastoral ministry in Chestnut Hill from 2004–06. He shared with his BC colleagues and parishioners at his adopted parish, St. Mark’s Church in Dorchester, the bleak situation at home, where there was no running water or sanitation. As Fr. Mwerekande explained the situation, “In my home village … the water supply is a communal well (more like a pond) that is contaminated. This well is used by humans and animals alike. The next well, which is also contaminated, is a distance of five miles. In order for any well water to be considered safe, it has to be boiled before consumption. One rain barrel can provide a family of five to ten people with a source of clean drinking water. The barrels hold approximately 200 liters of clean rainwater and can make a difference of life and death.”
Working with the St. Vincent de Paul Society at St. Mark’s, Fr. Mwerekande raised a modest amount of money for rain barrels for the community in Mubende. They were inexpensive at approximately $80 each, but had an outsized value to community members, especially the elderly, who would otherwise have had to travel on foot to the nearest well, carry their water supply back to their homes, and then engage in the time-consuming process of boiling the water. Further generosity from the parishioners of St. Mark’s eventually allowed the purchase of more rain barrels; in all, some 350 families in the area gained access to clean drinking water.
BC administrators were impressed that a relatively small investment in the hands of the right leader had made such a difference in people’s lives. When the Irish Famine Memorial Fund was created a short time later, the committee reached out to Fr. Mwerekande in Uganda to see if there were additional needs in his community. It did not take long for Fr. Mwerekande to come up with his wish list, and a relationship began.
Ongoing support by the IFMF to Our Lady of Fatima parish has led to the installation of more rain barrels as well as water tanks and latrines. Perhaps most significantly, an IFMF grant allowed for the construction of an irrigation system to support a sustainable agriculture program in the community. With his success in these efforts, Fr. Mwerekande was also able to attract new partners such as Engineers without Borders, who recognized the impact of these projects and partnered with the community to help make them a reality.
The results of the IFMF’s investment and Fr. Mwerekande’s vision are most striking in the parish schools. Access to clean water was a first, pivotal step for education, just as it was for daily life at home. Further, IFMF grants for books and school supplies have been very helpful in raising the level of education in the community. However, the school lunch programs established with IFMF funding have simply transformed the lives of the students. Fr. Mwerekande recounts that, before his development of the parish began, he would go out in the middle of the day and see children, absent from school, wandering around and napping out in public. “Many
Fr. Emmanuel Mwerekande with students in Uganda's Our Lady of Fatima parish receiving books and school supplies through IFMF grants.
were hungry, underweight, and sickly, with neither the energy nor the will to do anything,” he explains. Diseases that prey on the undernourished were rampant. With the grain produced by the sustainable agriculture program, the children are ensured at least one nutritional meal a day.
The lunch program at the parish schools and complementing ongoing water purification projects had great impact. Enrollment boomed as children came to school every day to have a good lunch to eat. Once they were better nourished, the entire atmosphere of the school and community changed. “Now, I see the students energetically engaged in their studies,” Fr. Mwerekande says. Then they are off to run and play after lunch. “The sounds of happy and healthy children are wonderful to hear,” adds Fr. Mwerekande. “It’s as if they’re different children.”
The Ugandan government has also taken notice. Ugandan officials visited the parish to discuss Fr. Mwerekande’s success and enlisted his help as an advisor on government development projects. “You’re showing us what we should be doing,” one official was overheard saying during a visit. After Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni came to the parish in 2015 to see for himself what was happening, Fr. Mwerekande was promised a boost in government funding for his work. BC administrators recently connected Fr. Mwerekande to USAID and Catholic Relief Services personnel to stimulate further cooperation. In recognition of Fr. Mwerekande’s “tireless efforts to improve the everyday lives of the people in his homeland,” Boston College awarded him an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree in 2016. ■
Supporting People in Crisis
a key aspect of the IFMF is its ethic of “giving back.” Committee member Thomas Reardon recalls that “Tom Flatley wanted scholarship recipients to be able to return to their homes, equipped with new skills and credentials, to make a difference in their native countries.” In practice, recipients have been remarkable in “paying forward” their educational and pastoral benefits once back home.
Filipina Sister Ashwena Apao of the Missionary Sisters of St. Columban was already studying theology at Boston College when a colleague suggested to her that her ministry back home would benefit from training in mental health counseling at BC. “This type of training is not readily available in the Philippines,” Sr. Apao said recently, “and we had seen a great need for such expertise at home and in mission territories.” Needing funding to pay for the additional academic training, she approached BC’s Rose Mary Donahue, who brought the case to the IFMF Committee for consideration. The resulting academic study and practicum in a Boston area homeless shelter gave Sr. Apao the skills and experience she desired. She left Boston College for a missionary assignment in Myanmar and assisted the local Church in developing a center for those suffering from drug addiction. Once, the fledgling center had offered mainly spiritual advice and encouragement; now, Sr. Apao was able to add a specialized professional dimension to the work, incorporating her BC training. “I’m very grateful for the opportunity I was given,” Sr. Apao says. “I just try to make a little difference in the world … and maybe that is growing.” ■
Midsalip Subanen Ministry: Sr. Ashwena Apao working among the Indigenous people of the region.
Peter G. Martin is the special assistant to the president of Boston College.
