Tom Stein
A former Oregon youth minister has been chosen as president of a Catholic school in Haiti that educates some of the world’s poorest children for free.
Tom Stein, who owned Catholic bookstores in the Northwest for almost a decade, will take over at Louverture Cleary School near Port Au Prince. The Madeleine and All Saints parishes and Central Catholic High School in Portland have chosen the school as a major charity, teaming up to provide more than 10 percent of its funding.
In his new post, Stein will serve both as president of Louverture Cleary and as head of the Haitian Project, a foundation that raises money for the urban campus. The school runs on about $700,000 per year.
Stein says his first aim will be to train staff so they can run the school independent of U.S. help. He also wants to establish an endowment so that fundraising, eventually, will not take up so much energy.
A Portland Haitian Project office is likely. There are already offices in Illinois and Rhode Island.
Louverture Cleary, founded 20 years ago, provides a free room, board and education to its 350 students in seven grades. Pupils qualify if they are unable to afford public education.
The average daily income in Haiti is about $1.50; Louverture Cleary families make less.
All students pass their grade 13 exam, well above the national average. They leave school knowing how to speak English, Spanish, French and Creole. Graduates vow to stay in Haiti to help revive the country, which is the poorest in the western hemisphere. The 50 to 60 graduates each year receive scholarships to Haitian colleges, paid for mostly by U.S. donors.
Students give as well as receive. Each afternoon, the grounds are opened to the public so young neighbor children can come use the library and be tutored by older students.
Louverture Cleary runs on a green model. Local growers provide food. Solar panels, the most of any other complex in Haiti, provide much of the power.
U.S. groups travel to the school often. A contingent from All Saints was there in March. Brown University sends medical students and teams from the University of Notre Dame and Seattle University take mission trips.
Stein, who lives in Gresham, worked last as youth minister at St. Henry Parish there. Lately, he’s been recovering from a fall that injured his neck. Doctors at one point said he might lose an arm because of nerve damage; his hand withered. He still experiences neck pain, but has recovered almost fully. He credits prayer.
Stein has worked as a teacher, counselor and coach, coming to Portland from Yakima to lead the Catholic Youth Organization. He is one of the founders of REACH, a Yakima project that sends youth evangelizers to parishes all over the Northwest. He was the founding director of the Portland Plunge, Los Embajadores and the Mobile Evangelization Teams for the Archdiocese of Portland, where he served as director of youth and young adult ministry for 14 years.
The father of eight, Stein has tended to answer calls. He was working in a financial services firm in Yakima when several colleagues suggested that he go full time into youth ministry. He took a major pay cut, but followed the ministry road.
When a Portland Catholic bookstore closed, people saw a need and he filled it. He later felt the nudge to return to youth ministry and helped begin the Father Bernard Youth Center in Mount Angel in 2006. He also began serving at St. Henry.
Backers of the school in Haiti approached Stein after the founding president retired.
Stein and wife Eileen for years dreamed of being missionaries, but held off because they did not want to disturb their children. But six are now grown and the couple will take their two youngest to Haiti.
Stein will travel the country building support.
Later this month, The Madeleine will hold a garage sale to help the school. The event is slated for July 25-27.
More information on the Haitian Project and Louverture Cleary School is available at haitianproject.org/index.htm.
