TRADITION A magazine for the alumni, families and friends of Joliet Catholic Academy Summer 2017 From left to right: Emily Cherwin, Jafet Soto, Emma Ehrsam, Hayden Wagner, Shannon Quinn LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT/PRINCIPAL OUR TRADITION Published by the Joliet Catholic Academy Communications Office Dear Alumni, Families and Friends, Administration As the 2016-2017 school year came to a President/Principal close, I wanted to start this letter by saying- Dr. Jeffrey Budz THANK YOU. Thank you to all that gave to JCA Vice Principal, Faculty and Operations through their time, talents, and treasures. William Pender We are a community built on TRADITION, Vice Principal, Curriculum and Technology SPIRITUALITY, and FAMILY to which you have Laura Pahl played a major role. On behalf of our students, Business Manager faculty and staff, and administration, we are Edward Mayer eternally grateful to the mark that you make on our school on a daily basis. We could not Admissions Office be Joliet Catholic Academy without your sup- Director of Admissions and Communications port. Ryan Quigley, 2003 So we turn the page on another success- Assistant Director of Admissions ful academic campaign, and have just con- Mary Russell Ragusa, 1993 gratulated the Class of 2017 on a stellar year. Assistant Director of Admissions Our graduates earned more than 15 million Joe Gura dollars in college scholarships, which we feel is a great return on investment for our fami- Alumni Relations Office lies. Our students logged more than 16,000 Director of Alumni Relations hours of community service and have once again set the bar for ACT /College readiness with their Sue Ruettiger Bebar, 1990 remarkable test scores. We feel that our students are prepared for college and the world and have the necessary tools to be leaders in their fields. Development Office Regarding our Capital Initiative, we are excited to report that we are about two-thirds com- Director of Development plete with Phase II. The updated Wi-Fi infrastructure has been installed and paid for at the start John Horn, 1991 of this school year. We are currently in the process of finishing the new window installation in the Development Coordinator Sue Hansen back of the building. That project should take us into July. The final piece of this Phase is the instal- lation of air-conditioning. Installation of air-conditioning will last all summer and probably take us Special Events into the fall. We are being as strategic as possible, with the classrooms as our number one priority. Director of Special Events We are still $450K shy of our goal of $1.5 Million for Phase II. We have been very successful thus Christine Voss far, but we need to keep moving, raising the necessary funds to finish. On the horizon, we see many advancements for our school and our students. Our 1:1 technol- Alumni Association Executive Board ogy initiative saw much success in its first year; we have successfully completed an AdvancED President accreditation review and are accredited once again for five years through this national organiza- Jeff Phelan, 1986 tion. Our curriculum next year features exciting new additions such as Engineering and Robotics. Vice President We always want to make sure that our students are getting the best opportunities to succeed and Matt Schimanski, 1998 thrive. We will always make sure that we are preparing them for their future. Treasurer Don Johnson, 1996 On behalf of the administration, faculty and staff, I hope that you have a wonderful summer Secretary and Thank You once again for all that you do for JCA! Lauren Las, 2004 Blessings, Joliet Catholic Academy 1200 N. Larkin Avenue Joliet, IL 60435 Jeffrey R. Budz 815.741.0500 www.jca-online.org Jeffrey R. Budz President/Principal Joliet Catholic Academy 2 | Tradition | Summer 2017 ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT Joliet Catholic graduate finds the cause of his life in Syria By SARWAT S. AHMAD themselves on Castello Road, an open road bombed He credits the Carmelite Catholic education – Shaw Media correspondent frequently and the only road left into East Aleppo. which stresses “service as well as spirituality” –he Printed April 23, 2017 in the Joliet Herald News Kahler had helped with Syrian refugees in camps received at the former St. Joseph Elementary School in Jordan and Lebanon. In Haiti, he traveled with and Joliet Catholic High School (now Joliet Catholic Last spring, ready to armed guards because of the threat of kidnapping by Academy). (Bold and Highlight this section) leave for a medical mission gangs. But in the last four years, after a bout with cancer, to Greece to help Syrian Kahler said he imagined Aleppo would be “some- “something changed in him” and he began to view refugees who had survived thing akin” to that. He was wrong. his purpose differently. crossing the Mediterranean During a pause in bombings, in separate SUVs “There was too much ‘of me, for me’ involved in Sea, Dr. John Kahler (JCHS Khaler and his companions and drivers made their those [previous] missions,” Kahler said, adding that ’65) heard about the death way past shells of bombed-out cars and trucks. seeing the world was a part of those missions. of the last pediatrician in “When we got into the city we could smell burnt Now, he was looking for something “to leave in East Aleppo in an airstrike flesh…the smell of death was in the air, no doubt the world.” on al-Quds Hospital in the war-torn and divided city. about that,” he said. In April 2015, Kahler saw a “60 Minutes” seg- “I contacted the head of [the Syrian American Kahler and Sahloul’s trip back out four days later ment on the sarin gas attack on the Ghouta region Medical Society] and I said, ‘Send me, I’ll go,’” re- was more terrifying, they said. of suburban Damascus. More than a thousand civil- counted Kahler, a 70-year old pediatrician who just At the M10 and M2 hospitals (which now have ians were reported to have been killed. Syrian rebels retired on Jan.1. been bombed out) Kahler saw at least 150 patients, blamed Assad for the attack. Kahler lives in Palos Park with his second wife, Ce- he said. Many of them needed general care, but a “The gassing and the sight of hundreds of chil- celia McClellan, but was born and raised in Lockport. number of children also had psychological problems. dren laid out in that warehouse haunted me,” Kahler McClellan, a social worker, said it was agreed ear- Many suffered from bed-wetting, anxiety, headaches said. “I would wake up two to three nights a week ly on that “he’ll ‘save the world’ and I’ll take care of and insomnia. with that nightmare.” the family.” One child was so afraid to sleep inside the family’s Soon after Kahler joined SAMS. He’s “had the itch” to travel all his life, Kahler said, home because of the bombings that the father had to A Witness and a Cause to Die For and has spent the last 20 years traveling to places set up a tent in the courtyard, Kahler remembered. About his desire to go to Aleppo, Kahler said that like New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina as well as Sahloul said that every day they Haiti, Africa and Latin America on short-term medical heard explosions, but people continued missions. to work. But Syria was to be unlike any other mission, in a “John was very cool; he took it very number of ways. well,” Sahloul said. East Aleppo is one of the most dangerous places Attar met Kahler on that mission, in the world, with daily airstrikes by the government his own second one which would last of President Bashar al-Assad on the rebel-held area. two weeks, but they became friends Dr. Zaher Sahloul, a critical care specialist from during that harrowing trip in. Burr Ridge who is also with SAMS, said Kahler repeat- “John has been going on medical ed that request to him in Greece. missions throughout the world,” Attar “I told him, ‘It’s very risky, especially for an Amer- said. “There is no place he wouldn’t ican physician,’” Sahloul said. “Physicians in general go…I think he is a remarkable, selfless are targeted by the Assad regime.” human. He sees the humanity in all of Sahloul, a Syrian-American who volunteered in us.” Syria 14 times – five of them in East Aleppo – since A Life Lived in Service the beginning of the civil war six years ago, knew Kahler said he has devoted most firsthand the dangers Khaler would face. of his life to providing medical care to The Road to Aleppo underserved areas, not only as a medi- At the end of last June, Kahler, Sahloul and an cal missionary but also in the 34 years American surgeon at Northwestern Medical, Samer he worked at Cook County Hospital in Attar, having crossed the Turkey-Syria border, found Chicago. Dr. John Kahler cares for patients in Syria Summer 2017 | Tradition | 3 ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT continued it was less about sharing his medical expertise as closed off. wanting to bring awareness, especially in the United They will not go to States, to the plight of the Syrian people. Aleppo yet, but in May Kahler felt more attention was paid in media and Kahler and Sahloul are by the United States to the threat of ISIS and not the planning to go to an- Syrian victims of Assad’s bombings. He added that other war-torn country more attention is on civilians now since the sarin gas – Yemen, as part of a attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun on April 4 and SAMS Global Response the subsequent U.S.