Going Back to School: John Foley and Preston Kendall

March 10, 2016

Rev. John Foley, S.J., and Preston Kendall played key roles in the formation of the Cristo Rey Network, a nationwide organization of Jesuit high schools for low-income students funded by a corporate work-study program. In this conversation, Kendall reflects on his spiritual and professional journey from pursuing a career in business to working in secondary education.

This story was produced by StoryCorps.

This story is a part of the American Pilgrimage Project, a conversation series that invites Americans of diverse backgrounds to sit together and talk to each other one-to-one about the role their religious beliefs play at crucial moments in their lives. The interview was recorded by StoryCorps, a national nonprofit whose mission is to preserve and share humanity’s stories in order to build connections between people and create a more just and compassionate world.

Kendall: Well, John and I actually met each other for the first time in 1978, when I was going to a Jesuit High School at Loyola Academy in Wilmette, Illinois. I was chosen to go to Peru for a summer and work in the Jesuit missions. I met this crazy missionary down in Peru, John Foley.

But then I came back to the United States. I finished high school, went to college, went to Northwestern University, got married, had a family and was in business school. I had been working in business for, I don't know, nine years or so. I was really looking for a change. I had been interviewing at other insurance companies and financial service places. I was frustrated that there wasn't something more. I remember going home to my wife, Jenny and saying, maybe this is an opportunity for me to do something completely different. She said, "Well, you always were interested in being a teacher." I said, "That's kind of interesting." I got the information on what I'd have to do to get certified to be a teacher in Illinois. I said, I'm going to have to throw away all my business background and start over again.

I'm not kidding. The next day, the Sun Times ran an article that the Jesuits were going to open a High School in Pilsen, the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago. John Foley, John P. Foley, my friend from Peru was coming back to the United States and was heading the effort.

Foley: The provincial said, "We want to do whatever the people want. We want to do something in education and whatever the people decide in the neighborhood, the Pilsen neighborhood in Chicago on the Southwest side of Chicago, we're going to ask them what their greatest educational need is." So, the conclusion to that survey or of the whole neighborhood was that they wanted a college prep secondary school.

Kendall: I took the day off of work. It feels like it was the next day. I went on to Pilsen and John and I walked around the streets in Pilsen where he was living. He said, "We're going to open the school, and we have this idea that the way we're going to fund it is that every student would work, but we need a business person to figure that out." I remember going home that night and saying to my wife, I said, "I think if I don't try this, I'm going to kick myself the rest of my life."

Foley: So, that's what we decided to do and that's how the whole Crystal Ray movement began.

Kendall: We were learning from each other. The students were teaching us a whole lot as we were trying to figure out how to run this school with them in it, and challenged us a lot. Why do I need to learn this? Why do I need to learn algebra? What good is this going to do me? We had a lot of conversations about their future and a lot of our kids didn't think they had much of a future. I think our country tells young people that come out of a low income, economically challenged background, that you're not worth much, you're not wanted and you're not capable. So, we were working with the students and some students came and approached a teacher and came to us and said, "We want to paint. We want to paint like a mural on the back wall. Can we do that?"

Foley: This is an example of how we learn from the kid.

Kendall: What happens? They unveil this beautiful mural and it's about them. The murals about them. There's a poem that's the leading figure of this mural. The refrain that's repeated over and over is, "We are the water walkers. We do things that even we can't imagine we can do."

Foley: Yeah.

Kendall: For me, this has been a faith journey. This has been something that is constantly humbling, but to be active and part of these young people's lives and to be welcomed into that and to maybe have somehow accompanied them on their own journey has been so gratifying. Then to see it grow and grow and grow.It's unexplainable, except that because we put the kids first, God's at work in it.