Bishop Cummins Program: An Opportunity to Succeed

Roberto Martinez knows the power of a Lasallian education, and the importance of making it available to boys whose families aren’t able to afford tuition at De La Salle High School.

As the first in his family to go to high school, and the son of a single mother who worked hard to help him do well at Cathedral High School, a Lasallian school in Los Angeles, Martinez now says he is “paying it forward” in his job as the new Bishop Cummins Program Coordinator at De La Salle.

“It’s personal for me to see these students be successful,” Martinez says, sitting in his office in the Learning Center, where the students gather after school for tutoring, mentoring, and camaraderie. “It’s my story too. I struggled growing up. I was in their shoes.”

Martinez, who went on to major in Theology and Education at LaSalle University in Philadelphia and was for a time in the Brothers’ novitiate, has brought his passion for helping disadvantaged boys to De La Salle. His goal is to not mentor just the 66 students now in the Bishop Cummins Program, but to grow the program from five percent of the student body to approximately 10 percent of the school’s total enrollment.

Martinez says he wants to ensure that the scholars get the services and support they need, academically, socially, and emotionally. That means getting to know and mentor them, communicating with their parents, including those who don’t speak English, and keeping in touch with their teachers, counselors, and coaches at De La Salle.

The Bishop Cummins Program, which provides tuition for students whose family income is below the federal poverty level and would not otherwise be able to afford De La Salle, was created by Mark DeMarco ’78 soon after he became De La Salle’s President in 2007. DeMarco, who retired in 2021, brought in Greg MacArthur ’03 to run the program. MacArthur grew the program and nurtured hundreds of Bishop Cummins Scholars through De La Salle until he moved into the Health Physical Education and Recreation Department this school year.

“I always felt the Bishop Cummins Program was the mission of the school. It’s a great program.”

Joining Martinez this year is Terry Eidson, a long-time De La Salle teacher and coach who worked with many Bishop Cummins Scholars for years. Eidson plans to spend his remaining years at the school with the program.

“I always felt the Bishop Cummins Program was the mission of the school. It’s a great program,” Eidson says. “It’s an opportunity to mentor the young men who academically can use that push.”

Eidson, who describes himself as a sometimes cheerleader, sometimes motivator, says the boys understand the expectations of the program, and they want to meet them. Eidson and Martinez help the boys in keeping up with their assignments, tracking their grades, and Eidson says, “pushing them in a gentle way” while always being “on the teacher’s side.”

Sometimes the scholars “don’t even realize they can go to a teacher or get a tutor for a particular subject,” Eidson remarks, noting that the adult mentors help them navigate an environment that can sometimes seem overwhelming.

Martinez says he, Eidson, and Learning Center Coordinator Jon Norfolk, help the students Monday through Thursday, along with tutoring help from National Honor Society students. On Fridays, Martinez has started after-school social sessions in the center for the boys to hang out, play games, and build a strong community.

“I’m really surprised at how successful it is,” Martinez says, who recalls feeling that high school was his “second home.”

“They just feel that they want to belong. They want to be with each other.”

In the fall semester, Martinez had a luncheon for family members so they could meet the program’s staff, the Counseling Department, and those who raise funds for the program. It allowed them to help build a community and establish relationships, while having a good time. When the students struggle, Martinez and Eidson are also there for them.

“Sometimes the conversations are hard,” Martinez says. “I tell them, ‘I’m hard on you because I love you. Because I love you, I’m not going to let you fail.’ ”

Those conversations may lead to learning that the boys are having a hard time academically because they’re going through difficult times.

“I don’t see an F,” Martinez says. “I see the boy that’s struggling because he has lost his dad, or his parents are getting a divorce.”

Currently, of the 66 Bishop Cummins Scholars, 20 are freshmen. Many of the students come from the De La Salle Academy in Concord, a middle school that focuses on boys from underserved families in Concord, and others are from the Monument Corridor in Concord and North Concord, Bay Point, Pittsburg, Antioch, Richmond, and Oakland. The program is based on a mutual commitment that scholars will commit themselves to a college prep environment, and the school committing to provide structures and mentors to help them succeed.

So far, that success is shown in grade point averages of 3.01 in recent years and a 100 percent college acceptance rate from various universities and community colleges, including the UC and CSU system, the University of Tennessee, Seattle University, the University of Missouri, Columbia, and the University of the Pacific.

As part of its effort to grow the Bishop Cummins Scholarship Program, it was the school’s beneficiary of its Giving Tuesday effort in November 2021. Fundraising efforts noted that it cost more than $20,000 a year for a Cummins scholar to attend De La Salle, and that the efforts of donors are crucial to keep it going – and growing.

Bishop Cummins

Scholars 2017-18 2018-19 2019-20 2020-21 2021-22 Freshman 21 15 19 15 20 Sophomore 15 20 15 19 16 Junior 12 14 19 18 17 Senior 11 11 13 13 13

Total 59 60 66 65 66

Achievements 2018-19 2019-20 2020-21 Cumulative Grade Point Average 3.09 3.01 3.01 Co-curricular Participation 70% 100% 100%

College Acceptance 91% 100% 100% Colleges Accepted to San Francisco State University Santa Clara University Diablo Valley College California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo Los Medanos College University of Colorado, Colorado Springs University of Arizona

University of Utah Laney College California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo California State University, Sacramento

University of Washington University of Missouri, Columbia

University of California, Merced

University of Portland

Seattle University California State University, Chico

Diablo Valley College California State University, Sacramento

University of the Pacific

University of California, Merced

University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Bishop Cummins Alum: Damon Wiley ‘16

Alumni of the Bishop Cummins Scholarship Program note their gratitude for the opportunity to go to De La Salle and continue on to college and a career. Damon Wiley ’16 says that his years at the school helped him expand his horizons, meet a wide variety of people, and provided a foundation for his later success at UC Berkeley and in his professional career. Wiley was recently promoted to Talent Acquisition Specialist at LinkedIn.

“I can genuinely say the guys I was with in the Bishop Cummins Program are still my best friends today,” Wiley says. “When I was at De La Salle, people came from different socioeconomic circumstances, but it didn’t matter where you were from. I lived in a small apartment with my grandparent and other guys were living in million-dollar homes, and their folks would open up their homes to me. It was beautiful to see.”

Wiley says he experienced a lot of childhood trauma, with his parents essentially out of his life before he was six. He knew nothing about De La Salle until junior high, when he heard about it from his uncle and friends in his Pop Warner football league in San Ramon.

Wiley played defensive end and guard on the Spartans football team, which won state championships in two of his seasons (2014 and 2015). He went on to play rugby at UC Berkeley, where he was a threetime All-American and on a national championship team. He majored in interdisciplinary studies, putting together a focus on economics, history, rhetoric, business, and African American studies.

“De La Salle was just paramount in my development as a young man,” he says. “They really shaped and molded me. Something I teach the young men I mentor now is to go to places where you’re going to get more tools on your toolbelt.”

At De La Salle, the tool belt he got as a Bishop Cummins Scholar held all the things he needed to succeed.

Help us succeed.

To learn more about how to support the Bishop Cummins Program, the Learning Center, or the De La Salle Annual Fund, please visit dlshs.org/givenow, or contact Mark Chiarucci, Vice President for Advancement, at chiaruccim@dlshs.org or Karla Wiese, Director of Development, at wiesek@dlshs.org.