Champions of Change
After serving the Jesuit missions in Peru for 34 years, working primarily in education, Father Foley returned to Chicago in 1995 to collaborate in establishing Cristo Rey Jesuit High School. A quality, Catholic, college preparatory high school, Cristo Rey serves a Hispanic neighborhood of working-class families with very limited options for giving their children the kind of education that families in other neighborhoods too often take for granted. Father Foley and his team employed an innovative business model whereby students work five days each month in an entry-level job at a professional company, with the fee for their work being directed to underwrite tuition costs. As the founding President of the school for eight years, Father Foley established the tradition and spirit of a school that has become a national model of 24 sustainable, Catholic high schools serving 6,900 low-income youth this school-year. In January of 2005, he assumed the presidency of the Cristo Rey Network, of which he is presently Chair Emeritus and Chief Mission Officer.