Our Work

Every Student Has a Story: Looking Back at the Voices That Inspired Our Galas

Every year at the Annual Building Minds Scholarship Fund Gala, there is a moment when the room grows still.

A student steps up to the podium.
The spotlight shifts.
And suddenly, we are reminded why this night matters.

This year’s Gala theme — “Every Student Has a Story” — celebrates the journeys made possible through your generosity. As we prepare to gather once again, we are looking back at some of the incredible students who have taken the stage before — students like Carlos, whose story continues to unfold in powerful ways.

Because when you support the Catholic Schools Foundation, you are not just funding scholarships.
You are shaping futures.

When Carlos Tamayo thinks back to the moment he stood at the CSF Gala podium in 2013, he still remembers the feeling.

“I was very surprised, and I have to admit, very nervous,” he told the audience that night.

He was only in eighth grade, younger than most student speakers who had come before him. The room was filled with some of Boston’s most prominent leaders and supporters. It would have been easy to shrink in a moment like that.

Instead, Carlos did what he has continued to do ever since. He stood up, spoke from the heart, and reminded everyone listening why their generosity matters.

“My name is Carlos Tamayo,” he said that evening, “the proud son of Colombian immigrants, and I believe that Catholic education is the best education you can find anywhere.”

More than a decade later, those words still ring true in his life.

Today, Carlos works in the Brookline public schools as a paraprofessional and special education teacher. He is also a community organizer and is working toward another longtime dream: becoming a pilot. His path has been anything but simple, but one thing is clear throughout it all. Catholic education did not simply change where he went to school. It shaped who he became.

Carlos’s story begins with sacrifice.

Before he was born, his mother left her small town in Colombia and came to the United States alone, hoping to create better opportunities for her family. His father joined her later, but for a time, the family remained separated. They worked tirelessly, often in physically demanding jobs that required long hours and offered little security.

In his 2013 speech, Carlos described it simply and powerfully.

“My mother found a job cleaning homes, restaurants, and hotel rooms, while my father was able to find a job working at a restaurant and cleaning cars by hand at a local car wash.”

Eventually, the family was reunited. But like so many immigrant families, they continued to live under enormous financial pressure, carrying the weight of hard work, limited resources, and the hope that their children might have a different future.

“My mother and father say that the best gift a parent can ever give a child is a good education,” Carlos said. “I am blessed to have parents who make sacrifices to send me to a Catholic school.”

That belief was not abstract in Carlos’s home. It was lived every day.

Carlos attended Saint Columbkille Partnership School, then Boston College High School, and later graduated from Boston College in 2021 during the pandemic. Looking back, he says his Catholic education shaped him “tremendously.”

“Nowhere else are you going to find an education that educates the whole person in the same way that Catholic schools do,” he said. “Not only was it rigorous academically, but the moral issues and the ethics were a huge part of the education.”

For Carlos, school was never just a place to learn. It was a place of safety, challenge, belonging, and hope.

“Going to school was a source of hope for me,” he said. “I knew that I had people who cared about me.”

That mattered deeply during a childhood marked by stress and instability. Carlos remembers growing up under financial pressure, helping his mother navigate life in a new country, and translating for her because she did not speak English. Those responsibilities were heavy for a young person to carry.

“Life was really challenging,” he said. “Especially because I had to translate everything for my mom growing up.”

But at Saint Columbkille and later at BC High, he encountered educators who saw him fully and supported him not just as a student, but as a person.

“I was supported in every way academically, personally, emotionally,” he said. “I was given a true, well-rounded education.”

Carlos first learned about CSF around sixth or seventh grade. At first, it was through financial aid and even something as simple as a Christmas card contest he won. But his understanding of CSF deepened through a far more personal experience.

During middle school, his family endured a severe bed bug infestation. They lost many of the things they had, and Carlos came to school with visible bites and swelling. It was an incredibly vulnerable time. But instead of being overlooked, he was cared for.

Carlos remembers how his principal, Dr. William Gartside, stepped in with compassion and action, helping connect the family with support for hygiene items, clothing, and basic personal needs.

“That’s sort of when I realized that Catholic Schools Foundation is not just about academics,” Carlos said. “It’s about what do you need to be okay in your personal life? Do you need food assistance? It’s okay if your family is an immigrant family. It’s okay if your mom doesn’t speak English. Catholic Schools Foundation helped.”

That experience left a permanent mark on him.

It showed him that donor support was not just helping him sit in a classroom. It was helping him hold his life together with dignity. It was protecting not only his education, but his sense of self.

By the time Carlos was asked to speak at the 2013 Gala, he had already spent years proving himself through hard work and perseverance. He remembers those middle school years as difficult and demanding. He had come from a school environment that had not prepared him academically, and he had to work intensely to catch up.

“I had to work really hard to catch up to the kids at Saint Col’s,” he said. “I put in so much time and effort into every small assignment, into making everything neat, into just working really hard and trying to represent me and my family the best way I could.”

His principal noticed. So did the people around him.

Dr. Gartside proposed the idea of Carlos speaking at the Gala in the winter of 2012, assuring him there was no pressure, but that he believed he could do it.

“He was like, ‘I think you’d be great,’” Carlos recalled. “It was the biggest thing I had ever done.”

For months, Carlos worked on the speech with Dr. Gartside, Mike Reardon, and Peter Lynch. Then came the night itself.

“It was scary,” he said. “Being in front of so many people that I didn’t know, telling a story that’s so vulnerable, but real.”

His parents were so proud that they bought him a new suit for the occasion.

He still remembers seeing Cardinal Seán, Bob Kraft, the president of BC High, the president of Boston College, and so many others in the room. But what stayed with him most was not the prestige. It was the feeling that he had become part of something bigger than himself.

“I felt like I was part of a movement,” he said. “Something really special.”

That night remains one of the accomplishments he is proudest of.

“To this day, it’s still one of my biggest accomplishments I’ve achieved,” he said.

When Carlos spoke at the Gala, he was preparing to attend Boston College High School. At that point, college still felt distant. He was not yet thinking beyond the next step.

“I wasn’t yet thinking about college just yet,” he said. “At that moment, it was more like, ‘Oh my God, I can go to a school like BC High. Someone like me.’”

That sense of possibility expanded over time.

At BC High, Carlos encountered a world of service, justice, and leadership that widened his vision for what education could do. One especially transformative moment came through the Ignatian Family Teach-In in Washington, D.C.

There, as a high school student, he met activists, participated in discussions about human rights, and even went to Capitol Hill to speak with lawmakers.

“That was a huge moment for me,” he said. “I came back to BC High being like, ‘Wow, I did that. I’m very young, and I want to study political science at Boston College, because this is what I want to do.’”

He did exactly that.

Inspired by those experiences, Carlos studied political science at Boston College. That path later evolved into work in education, public service, and community advocacy, but the through-line has remained the same. He wants to help people. He wants to lead with values. He wants to make a difference.

Carlos’s path after college has been deeply rooted in purpose.

“I decided to explore education, because I figured if I want to help other people, education is the best way to do that,” he said. “Building relationships and being that guiding role model for children.”

Today, in Brookline public schools, he is doing exactly that.

At the same time, he has remained active in community life. In Brookline, where he grew up in public housing, Carlos ran for Town Meeting three times and was elected twice.

“I saw it as a duty,” he said. “I got this great education. I got the chance to go to college and be the first person in my family to do so. I think God is putting me in a position to show up and be able to speak on those things.”

That same sense of purpose also continues to animate his dream of becoming a pilot. For Carlos, even that dream is tied to service. He hopes one day to use aviation in ways that can help others.

“I’m interested in many different things,” he said, “and I’m continuing to find ways to blend them together.”

When asked what he would say to donors today, Carlos answered with a depth of feeling that comes only from lived experience.

“Thank you for giving me a reason to live,” he said.

Then he paused and reflected on everything Catholic education had given him.

“It has been the best thing that ever happened to me,” he said. “I felt so cared for, so appreciated.”

He knows that once students leave that environment, the world can feel very different. But what stays with them are the values, the formation, and the sense that their life matters.

“The only thing we take with us when our time is up in this world is the way that we change people’s lives and the way that we made them feel,” he said. “It’s not about the physical, momentary pleasures. It’s about each other.”

That is what he wants donors to understand. Their support is not simply paying for tuition. It is changing how a child experiences the world. It is giving students a moral compass, a safe place, a community, and the courage to use their voice.

Carlos still speaks about CSF with the same passion he had as a student. In fact, he says it more strongly now.

“I’m so unbelievably proud to be a part of the Catholic Schools Foundation,” he said. “I’m going to carry it for the rest of my life.”

He sees the Gala speakers, past and present, as part of a larger family. He hopes that over time, those students can continue building community with one another, cheering each other on, and standing together for the values that first brought them to the stage.

That feeling began for him in 2013, when he realized for the first time that even as a young person, he could lead.

“That was the first moment in my life where I was like, wow, I’m a young person and I can do things to make a difference,” he said.

And that is exactly what he has continued to do.

Because of donor support, Carlos was able to attend schools that challenged him, formed him, and believed in him.

Because of donor support, a young student with a powerful story became the first in his family to graduate from college.

Because of donor support, he now serves others through education, advocacy, and community leadership, carrying forward the same values that once changed his life.

That is the power of CSF.

That is what proof of impact looks like.