PRESS RELEASE
Submitted by Wernle Youth & Family Treatment Center
A highly-esteemed national voice of higher education and Catholic leader will be honored in a visit Oct. 5 to Richmond.
Notre Dame President Father John I. Jenkins will be the guest of honor at the annual Catalyst for Change event for Wernle Youth & Family Treatment Center.
He will visit with attendees and also give a speech in the event that runs from 6 to 9 p.m. at Forest Hills Country Club. A dinner will be served at the annual celebration that is Wernle’s top annual fund-raising event. Jenkins will be given the National Catalyst for Change Award.
Charlotte Maley of Richmond, lawyer John Maley of Indianapolis and other family members also will be honored during the festivities for their service to the 132-year-old treatment facility for abused, abandoned and challenged young men.
The AR-Hale Foundation of Lima, Ohio, which is led by Leo Hawk, will be given the regional award for its longtime generosity toward Wernle.
A new award will be this year for alumni of Wernle. The first winner will be Gary Hutton, who lives near Houston, Texas. He spent his high school years in the mid-1960s at Wernle before serving with the Army in Vietnam. He returned to get his college degree at IUPUI with the help of the GI Bill, then embarked on a successful career that included being a vice president for a time at British Petroleum. Hutton now works in the propane gas industry around southern Texas.
Sponsorships, tables and individual seats are available. Call (765) 939-4575 or (877) 336-8333or visit www.wernle.org for more information.
Jenkins became the 17th president of the University of Notre Dame on July 1, 2005, after serving as vice president and associate provost. His high-profile job is one of the most prestigious in any university of the world.
Wernle has a long heritage of Christian work. Its Lutheran legacy goes back to the beginning in 1879 as an orphanage for boys and girls. Catholic ministries also have helped mightily in Wernle’s mission.
Previous Catalyst for Change recipients Regis Philbin, Nicholas Sparks and Lou Holtz also have had deep Notre Dame connections. Wernle CEO Darrell Gordon played for Holtz on Notre Dame’s 1988 championship team.
Last year’s national recipient was Rupert Boneham of “Survivor’ fame and who has had a long history of helping young people.
Father Jenkins earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in philosophy from Notre Dame in 1976 and 1978, respectively, and was ordained a priest of the Congregation of Holy Cross in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart at Notre Dame in 1983. He also earned bachelor’s and doctoral degrees in philosophy from Oxford University, and a master of divinity degree and licentiate in sacred theology from the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley.
He is the recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor and the American Irish Historical Society’s Gold Medal and the author of numerous scholarly articles and the book Knowledge and Faith in Thomas Aquinas.
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