About the Nonprofit
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Our Lady of Mount Carmel School is a K-8 Catholic Parish school serving Asbury Park and Neptune Township, New Jersey. It was founded to minister to the children of Italian immigrants to the U.S. in the 1920's. OLMC continues to minister to all children who come to its doors seeking God and education. Presently we primarily serve a population of Hispanic and Haitian children with the majority of students being children of immigrants from Mexico, Central America, and South America. At Our Lady of Mount Carmel School there are 180 students enrolled belonging to 135 families between the ages 5-15. Furthermore, tuition is based on a sliding scale of parents and guardians yearly income, because 82.89% of our student body receive reduced or free lunches.
Our Lady of Mt. Carmel School helps this generation of Hispanic and Haitian immigrant children become successful spiritually and academically. Our staff and children are respected for their cultural diversity, accepted as individuals, and nurtured with loving care. We encourage our students to make decisions and accept responsibilities that will develop them into well-rounded, self-confident, and responsible members of the 21st century community who are grounded in moral values. While recognizing the individual differences with the learning process, we endeavor to teach academic skills, to inspire creativity, and to measure excellence through varied instruction and assessment. We are striving with the compassion taught in our school, but also to respect the varied cultures, people, and families within and beyond the community.
Our mission is to provide accessible, high-quality education and afterschool enrichment programming in a safe and nurturing environment for our students to discover their talents and interests, developing the self confidence, character, and social skills they need to succeed in high school, pursue higher education, obtain employment, and give back to the community. This enrichment project is designed to level the playing field for children living in poverty in Asbury Park. By providing them with similar educational opportunities to extend day school learning that children attending a school in an affluent community would have.
The Asbury Park community continues to struggle with high rates of violent crime, unemployment, drug and alcohol addiction, and single-parent households. Our enrichment program is also designed to address these issues by providing a safe and productive environment after school so parents do not have to choose between their jobs and their children’s safety. The program is also designed to meet the need for overall health and well-being of our students, addressing nutrition, character development, fitness and individual expression in addition to strengthening their academics and day school learning for our students to experience for the next 100 years.