It was a great year for Bishop Maginn and an awful year for young people in Albany. We can do something about it.

Someone at Bishop Maginn High School asked me in tears today what they could do about the violence killing students in that city. Go on the new wish list, I said, and buy a book and some art supplies for Bishop Maginn, the safest and best high school in the city.

They need our help again. There is a new and especially important new Amazon Bishop Maginn Books and Art Supplies Wish List  up and running as of today. At the outset, there were 28 separate items on the list.

Bishop Maginn got through the pandemic with flying colors and much praise from local authorities. But they are swamped with new enrollments.

Albany is awash in an unprecedented wave of gun violence, several of the students have seen their friends gunned down right in front of them.

Sue says these boys, once happy and outgoing, are angry and withdrawn. They are changed.

The school is increasingly seen as a safe and educationally solid oasis. Children who struggle to learn in the vast and troubled public school system come to Bishop Maginn and learn there. It happens all the time.

This year, they have an especially good chance to get on their feet again after years of struggle. This is their moment.

They need help meeting this new demand (the Catholic Church has little money right now but supports the school in every way it can), and bouncing back from the pandemic,  as most of their students can’t pay all or most of their tuition.

Without this school, they would have nowhere to go.

Next week, I’m going to re-interview Hservay, a refugee student who was beaten so badly in the public schools she had to be hospitalized. She came to Bishop Maginn last year and has thrived, winning great grades and numerous awards.

Her story is amazing.

Via the wish list, the school is asking for helping to get four urgently needed and culturally relevant books. They also need art supplies for Sue Silverstein, who gave all of her supplies away to students during the pandemic.

She has none left.

Sue’s art class has, as much as anything the school has done, helped the refugee students who struggle with civil war and dislocation and those inner-city children suffering inner-city poverty and violence heal and learn.

For the past several years, every student at BMHS who wants to go to college has been accepted, often on hard-won scholarships.

Sue says the violence all around them is damaging them in invisible and painful ways. This is tearing up the teachers as well as the students.

Sue ([email protected])  is a saint, she has turned so many lives around. She works day and night and earns less than most fast-food workers and waitresses.

Her art class is the soul of the school.

So many students learn to express their feeling and emotions through the art we have helped them make and the pictures she shows them how to take (we bought digital cameras for the art class last year.)

We need to get her art class replenished.

There is a new English teacher and she is eager to get some books that reflect the student’s lives and interests. Her name is Moira David Tatum and she is shaking things up in a very creative way.

This is a great move for Bishop Maginn.

Her choices are Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, a $7.30 paperback, The Call of the Wild, a paperback by Jack London (and my favorite all-time dog book), The Crucible: A Play in Four Acts, a paperback for $9.99, and The House On Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, a paperback for $6.19.

They need 30 copies of each.

Sue is asking for basic art tools that range in price from $$7.59 to $13.59. They include acrylic and other pants, palettes, canvas panels, paintbrushes, oils and pastels, chalk and watercolor pads, and paints. She needs 3 of almost all of these items.

I went to Bishop Maginn High School this morning to meet with Principal Mike Tolan and Arts and  Sue, art and theology teacher and the bestest of friends.

The subject was Army Of Good support for Amazon Bishop Maginn High School Fall Book And Art Supplies Wish List.

They said we had until September, I said we didn’t wish to wait that long.

Last year the health department told the school they would not have been allowed to open without the safety equipment sent by the Army of Good in August.

The school got through the entire year without a serious Covid-19 case, the health department said they were the best-prepared school in Albany.

They had everything they needed to be safe, and while the Albany School System shut down, BMHS offered virtual and face-to-face learning all year.

Desperate parents hated virtual learning.

The word spread quickly – there was a small, safe, learning environment in Bishop Maginn. Refugees and children from the inner city came pouring in to sign up their children.

Bishop Maginn will have a record fall enrollment this September, and much of the thanks goes to the Army of Good.

The ax was hovering dangerously over the school.

You can help by supporting the Wish List here, If you are uncomfortable purchasing items online, you can send a donation to me, Jon Katz, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816,” Supplies For Bishop Maginn.” I will purchase items for you.

You can also send donations via Paypal, [email protected], or Venmo, [email protected].

We estimate there are $1,700 dollars worth of supplies on the wish list. Thanks for your support.