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A speaker at the 38th annual Friends of Inner-City Scholarship Gala told those gathered that his Catholic education led the way for him to become an Emmy Award-winning producer at CBS Sports.
Richard Recchia, the speaker, said, “I don’t know if I would have developed the desire to dream and aspire for what I have been blessed with today.”
Recchia is a 2004 graduate of St. Agnes Boys High School and previously attended Our Lady of Good Counsel School, both in Manhattan. He holds a bachelor’s in broadcast journalism from New York University and a master’s in journalism from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.
In his remarks, Recchia said his time at St. Agnes, which closed last year, taught him he could be “a young man who could be a positive force in society.”
Describing his early years, he said, “I spent my childhood living in a public housing project complex in Manhattan, with my mother and three siblings, in a cramped one-bedroom apartment—finances were tight.”
Catholic school provided a refuge and also an avenue for Recchia’s successful development.
He spoke to a room of more than 400 guests at the Friends of Inner-City Scholarship Gala at Cipriani 42nd Street in Manhattan. The May 13 event raised $1 million.
Susan George, executive director of ICSF, said, “A quality education is the most powerful tool a child can have.”
Looking out toward the guests, she said, “Seeing this room so full of people committed to providing educational opportunities to our students, is something I, and the thousands of students Inner-City supports, are very thankful for.”
ICSF provides tuition assistance to low-income students attending inner-city Catholic schools in the archdiocese. Cardinal Cooke and a group of business executives from various backgrounds founded it in 1971. More than 7,500 students in 79 inner-city Catholic schools in Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island are assisted by ICSF. Ninety-eight percent of seniors attending inner-city Catholic high schools graduate, and 96 percent attend college.
Cardinal Dolan attended the event. Martha MacCaullum, co-anchor of Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom” served as gala chair. Peter Johnson, Jr., a Fox News Channel analyst served as the master of ceremonies. Brother Tyrone Davis, C.F.C., director of the archdiocesan Office of Black Ministry, gave the opening prayer.
In addition to dinner and dancing, guests enjoyed a performance by Maria Jose Nolasco, an eighth-grade student at Immaculate Conception School in the Bronx, who sang “Vivir Mi Vida” by Marc Anthony and “Colors of the Wind” by Stephen Schwartz.
