Chapters:

[00:00:00] Introduction
[00:01:15] Meet Tom Cooper
[00:07:09] Working with the Catholic Church and Philanthropy
[00:10:20] The Impact of Catholic Schools and Bursaries
[00:13:02] What Led Tom to Officially Convert to Catholicism?
[00:19:12] Fundraising for Catholic Schools and the Role of Generosity
[00:25:43] The Role of St. Mark’s and Corpus Christi in Catholic Education
[00:28:17] Expanding the Reach of Catholic Education Beyond the Church
[00:31:25] The Role of Non-Catholic Philanthropists in Supporting Catholic Causes
[00:33:23] The Vancouver Prayer Breakfast
[00:42:21] The Jesuit Scotch Event
[00:48:01] The Power of Storytelling in Fundraising and Advocacy
[00:49:45] How Catholic Education Shapes Future Leaders
[00:57:24] Conclusion

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Can faith and philanthropy work together to transform communities? In this episode of Catholic Education Matters, host Troy Van Vliet sits down with Tom Cooper, founder of City in Focus, to discuss his journey from Presbyterian pastor to devoted Catholic, his passion for serving the unchurched, and the transformative power of philanthropy in Catholic education. They explore the critical role of bursaries in making Catholic schools accessible, the importance of servant leadership, and how faith-based initiatives like the BC Leadership Prayer Breakfast and the Jesuit Scotch Event  bring people together for a greater cause. Tom shares his insights on fostering unity between Catholics and Protestants, engaging non-Catholic philanthropists in Catholic causes, and why true generosity extends far beyond financial contributions. Tune in for an inspiring conversation about faith, service, and the lasting impact of giving.

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Troy Van Vliet: Welcome to Catholic Education Matters, the podcast that celebrates the beauty of Catholic education, highlighting excellence in academics, athletics, and the transformative power of faith. Join us as we share the stories of those making a lasting impact on Catholic education. Let’s begin.
[00:00:25] Hello, everybody. Welcome to Catholic Education Matters. My name is Troy Van Vliet. I am the Foundation Board Chair for St. John Paul II Academy, the newest Catholic high school. In a, uh, the Vancouver Archdiocese and in the lower mainland here in British Columbia.
[00:00:40] Um, and I am here today with the infamous Tom Cooper, a friend of, I call him a friend. He might not call me a friend just yet, but
[00:00:49] Tom Cooper: we’ll see.
[00:00:49] Troy Van Vliet: I’ll call him a friend. Um, founder of City in Focus and, um, ex pastor for the Presbyterian Church. Uh, re, um, recently just turned Catholic. And, um, or fairly recently anyway, um, and, uh, so we’ve got a lot of fun stuff to talk about today regarding Catholic education and fundraising and all of the many broad different topics that we can cover.
[00:01:15] So we’ll have to try and keep it down to a dull roar here in terms of time. I think we could probably talk for days, but Tom, welcome. Thank you for coming.
[00:01:23] Tom Cooper: Thank you. It’s a privilege to be here. I’m very fond of the new school being built and the strategy in which is building it and who it’s for. So, I’m happy to be here.
[00:01:32] Troy Van Vliet: Yes, it’s exciting time. Yes, we have a picture of it in the background there. Just a rendering. It’s we are going to be open in September of 2020. Well, this year I’ve been saying 2025 for so long. You know, down the road, we’re going to be open, but, uh, it’s, we’re now in the year that the new campus will be open.
[00:01:51] So Tom, tell us a little bit about, um, City in Focus and a little bit about also you coming over to the Catholic faith too, which is, I think, a great story as well.
[00:02:00] Tom Cooper: Well, uh, City in Focus, um, uh, basically the history of City in Focus, why I got started was how somewhere between how I grew up, how I worked and what I saw the needs were.
[00:02:13] I, uh, I grew up on in, uh, my father was very wealthy, uh, and I remember watching drop walking by his desk and seeing a personal letter from John Kennedy. He, uh, ran a large company in New York. I was then allowed to go to a private school. And they are, that’s rarified air in New England. Uh, we live on a private island.
[00:02:35] You had to get stopped and they had to call up to let your car come through to go up. I had a lot of wealth and privilege. I saw it up close. Then I was in business, and I also saw it again from business leaders who I worked with in my company that I was joined with another person. It was the advertising company.
[00:02:54] So I think part of that experience is just watching people and relationships. And I realized, um, that and I had somewhat of a faith in them, some of this. And I realized that they were just as marginalized and just as needy as anyone, uh, we used to call them the up and outers. Uh, and so my church experience, uh, was, I used to see a lot of the church not doing very well with the unchurched.
[00:03:22] So City in Focus was kind of like an opportunity to deal with a wider community, right? And if I, uh, if I, uh, someone used to say it, it’s a hackneyed phrase. But I, you, uh, you want to, uh, comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. That’s kind of what I do.
[00:03:41] Troy Van Vliet: Hm.
[00:03:42] Tom Cooper: Uh, and that’s good. And I am on the point with many, 90% of British Columbia doesn’t even go to church. So, most of my world are the unchurched world. Um, as we, our tagline is care for the soul of the city. And, uh, I think if I could say it in a nutshell, Frederick Buechner who’s an author and writer and Christian said, when the world has a great need, and you find great joy meeting that need, then you know the hand of God is upon you.
[00:04:12] Troy Van Vliet: Wow.
[00:04:13] Tom Cooper: And that’s exactly I am right where I need to be and want to be.
[00:04:17] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:04:17] Tom Cooper: And I feel like, and it’s the unchurched and I, that is probably why City of Focus works. That’s, those are some of the tenets that got me launched into it.
[00:04:28] Troy Van Vliet: Right.
[00:04:28] Tom Cooper: Okay. Uh, the Catholic side, if you want me to jump to that for a bit.
[00:04:32] Troy Van Vliet: Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I’d love to hear.
[00:04:34] Tom Cooper: And it dovetails a bit with, uh, philanthropy, but we’ll start with the fact that, uh, the public school, we moved to Point Grey. It was not particularly good. So, I got my first son into OLPH, Our Lady of Perpetual Help. And then my next son got in because the first son was in, we were Protestants. I had no Catholic faith and then my daughter went.
[00:04:57] So my first react, my first experience was that. But I had had experiences with the Catholic Church when I was in university. I was working with youth, and a Catholic priest hired me to work with all the youth in his diocese, though I’m not a Catholic.
[00:05:11] Troy Van Vliet: Hm.
[00:05:11] Tom Cooper: And I lived in a remodeled convent with two nuns and a priest. And, uh, and that was an amazing story to understand. Watch how they really worked, how they prayed. But that was a very good experience. Sister Rosari was a remarkable human being and full of joy. That’s when I started reading certain books about the Catholic faith, because I didn’t understand it.
[00:05:33] Troy Van Vliet: How old would you have been then?
[00:05:34] Tom Cooper: 18, no, 19 and 20 and 20.
[00:05:37] Troy Van Vliet: Wow, okay.
[00:05:37] Tom Cooper: And that was very helpful for me. And then I pretty much was involved in youth work and church work. Uh, I dropped out of all of that, I was your typical hip hippie because in my generation, hippies were predominantly children of the wealthy or the upper middle class.
[00:05:55] They could afford to be hippies. They could tune out, they could drop out of school, they had resources. And that’s pretty much my story. And then my faith odyssey came back in. But the Catholic church didn’t really go on the horizon for me until I, uh, was going to a church in Vancouver when we moved years ago in 1988. And I started seeing split after split in the Protestant world.
[00:06:22] Troy Van Vliet: Right.
[00:06:22] Tom Cooper: And I finally just looked at myself one day and I said, you know, I think I’m going to try something else. And I remember Sister Rosario and I remember the Catholic community at OLPH.
[00:06:34] Troy Van Vliet: Ya.
[00:06:34] Tom Cooper: So, I just drove up to St. Mark’s College at UBC and parked, St. Mark’s Parish and parked and I started going there and I went the next, I’ve gone the last 20 years.
[00:06:43] Troy Van Vliet: Wow.
[00:06:45] Tom Cooper: And then through that, I got tied to different causes because the Catholics have great charities. I help charities that are Catholic and Protestant.
[00:06:56] Troy Van Vliet: Hm.
[00:06:56] Tom Cooper: But I started working with Archbishop Roussin and because, uh, the Olympics was coming and City in Focus was asked to be the head of all Christian work for the Olympics of 2010.
[00:07:09] We had 1100 churches. We had over a; we had over a hundred nonprofits, and we put catholic leaders Barb Dowding vice chancellor. She was on the executive committee, and it was the interesting, I was introducing Barb to the head of Campus Crusade for Christ who never met a catholic. But for me, it’s always been both.
[00:07:28] Troy Van Vliet: Ya.
[00:07:29] Tom Cooper: And I don’t think binary with the kingdom.
[00:07:31] Troy Van Vliet: Ya, mm-hm.
[00:07:31] Tom Cooper: I think everyone, and I watched and then the archbishop jumped in. We send signed off on it and then Miller signed off and. They were donors to help the Olympics and participants all the way. So that kind of got me into that, then I met Archbishop Roussin a bit more and then I had a conversation. I then my one lunch, I had a joint lunch with them. And I went, Lord, Tom, you know, you’re a Protestant having lunch with two archbishops. But, uh, what it got me thinking about is how I could help them. And so, I, City in Focus started just doing, uh, philanthropic work with them. Right.
[00:08:06] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:08:07] Tom Cooper: And someone said to me, I, he said, how’d you get involved? I said, you know, there are several people in the world that you just know that you have to help them. You don’t have to really worry about it. The answer is yes. I remember years ago, uh, Sister Elizabeth, she was in the East Vancouver with the sisters of um, what were they called?
[00:08:27] They were, they finally retired. But they were sisters that had been 50 years in East Van.
[00:08:32] Troy Van Vliet: Mm-hm.
[00:08:32] Tom Cooper: One of them, Sister Elizabeth, in her 80s, did all the marches, quite radical. And one day I get a phone call, and my assistant says, Sister Elizabeth’s on the phone? And I said, yeah, okay. Hi, Sister Elizabeth. She said, hi, Tom.
[00:08:45] I never talked to her on the phone. I’ve been at meetings with her. And she said, uh, we were broken into last night and.
[00:08:51] Troy Van Vliet: Oh.
[00:08:51] Tom Cooper: And you know, immediately that you’re being called by a nun. It doesn’t really matter what the issue is, you are going to say yes. And then she started walking through the door was broken down, the lock was broken. They broke into the cabinet. They stole all the toothpaste, all the, she went on for 10 minutes. And I said, well sister, that’s terrible. How can I help? Well, I would want you to know if you could give us money to reimburse all that and fix the door. I said, of course.
[00:09:18] And I said, so how much do you need? Well, it’s a lot of money, Tom. And I said, and she said, it’s 370$. And I hung up and said, thank you God. And I said to the sister, sister, the check is literally in the mail. But I started watching how Catholics worked with the poor and the needy, and I watched how they helped me. I was financially way behind financially. And I remember going to father David at OLPH. And I said, I cannot afford, um, the second kid coming and he just waved his hand and said, do not worry about it. I never, ever forgot that.
[00:09:57] In fact, it laid in me deeply. And years later, when I did well, I sent a significant cheque to the school. And someone called me and said, we don’t know who you are. We don’t know who City in Focus is. I said, you don’t need to know. He said, what do we do with this? I said, it goes in your bursary funds because years ago, people I don’t know, helped my kids go. So, I’m helping kids I don’t know. It was a one more example.
[00:10:20] And Archbishop Miller told me years later, many lay non-Catholics end up in the Catholic community because their children were allowed to come.
[00:10:28] Troy Van Vliet: Ya.
[00:10:28] Tom Cooper: And I think we need to remember that when we have Catholic schools.
[00:10:31] Troy Van Vliet: Ya.
[00:10:31] Tom Cooper: Not to be so truncated, uh, by isolating only Catholics. So, uh, anyway, over time, uh, meeting nuns, working with Archbishop Miller in philanthropy, I did a lot of work with him, working with, um, uh, community leaders. We would meet with all the heads of issue all the heads of people that ran denominations. It could be Mennonite; it could be Baptist.
[00:10:58] Troy Van Vliet: Hm.
[00:10:58] Tom Cooper: It could be Lutheran, uh, Anglican, but we would convene meetings and he, I would join, I would go with him, and I watched how he interacted. And over time going to church there, watching him interact, it was very helpful for me because I slowly started understanding what the Catholic community was.
[00:11:15] Troy Van Vliet: Wow.
[00:11:15] Tom Cooper: So. And then over time, I had good friends of the Jesuit community, and I just slowly got more and more inclined. And I finally decided, uh, three, a little bit over three years ago, to become a Catholic.
[00:11:31] Troy Van Vliet: Wow. So, you were involved with the church for a long time, with the Catholic Church for a long time?
[00:11:36] Tom Cooper: Many years. I raised lots of money for the Catholic Church, and I was a Protestant. But I always raised for things that were helpful. For example, there was a need to have the College of the Department of Engagement at, um, St. Mark’s. Uh, I got together a buddy of mine who is well off and we also wanted to help.
[00:11:57] So I helped, I got a couple other guys together and collectively they gave, uh, two million dollars to launch that at St. Mark’s. And then, uh, we wanted Jimmy Crescenzo, who’s a Christian that works, and he’d be a great interview. He works with kids; he’s worked for kids for 30 years and won every award in Canada on teaching.
[00:12:17] And he had kids that couldn’t afford to go to school. So, we had an event, Michael Audain was interviewed, and we raised $300,000 to help low-income kids go to school at St. Mark’s. And people respond to that. And Jimmy’s kids stood up. And talked about their lives and people said, yeah, we want them. So now they go, they go for two years free and then they transfer to our school, they transfer. We don’t really care, but it’s giving them hope. So those are all things that I was doing all this as a non-Catholic, I just wanted to see it done.
[00:12:48] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:12:49] Tom Cooper: That makes sense.
[00:12:50] Troy Van Vliet: Wow. So, what, um, we’re kind of, I’m digging into this year a little bit further, but
[00:12:55] Tom Cooper: that’s okay.
[00:12:56] Troy Van Vliet: What put you over, what tipped you over the edge in terms of actually wanting to be, you were doing all these wonderful things, you were proud, right?
[00:13:02] Tom Cooper: What tipped me over the edge,
[00:13:04] Troy Van Vliet: the faith. And then you, you saw, well, I know you were close with Archbishop Miller.
[00:13:08] Tom Cooper: Yeah.
[00:13:08] Troy Van Vliet: And, um, uh.
[00:13:10] Tom Cooper: And cl a close, uh, close with uh, Father Rob who’s a Jesuit.
[00:13:17] Troy Van Vliet: Mm-hmm.
[00:13:18] Tom Cooper: I think what tipped me over is I, uh, there are issues in all of our families, and there are issues that stretch us. And we have, if we’re honest, we go back long enough and deep and wide enough, we come into real, uh, challenges of the families, uh, and it could be mental health, it could be physical, it could be, who knows. But when this really ended, uh, when this really intensified, part of me said I needed to quit floating.
[00:13:45] Troy Van Vliet: Hmm.
[00:13:45] Tom Cooper: I needed to anchor in.
[00:13:46] Troy Van Vliet: Hmm.
[00:13:47] Tom Cooper: And that’s what finally allowed It made me jump in and my son had become a Catholic.
[00:13:52] Troy Van Vliet: Ahh.
[00:13:52] Tom Cooper: And daughter in law had become a Catholic and my grandchildren. And so, I think it was a time of life. I had been going for 17 years.
[00:14:01] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:14:01] Tom Cooper: I was so glad the Archbishop Miller didn’t say to me when I told him Well, it’s about time. very gracious guy. Anyway, but my point was, I think that was a cumulative thing of personal need, personal search, and sitting there for 2018 years or 17 at the time, just listening to the Catholic community and, uh, and the social justice and the need and the family care and the, I think collectively it brought me there.
[00:14:22] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. Wow. What a, that’s a great story and I love hearing, uh, um, people’s conversions or reversions, reversion back to the faith, which I quite talk about with me. I never left the Catholic church; I was born as cradle Catholic.
[00:14:36] Tom Cooper: Right.
[00:14:36] Troy Van Vliet: Um, grew up in a great family, went to a Catholic high school. Um, after between university and having kids’ kind of floundered around a little bit, you know, wasn’t really, I was still shared by faith, but it wasn’t deep within me, you know. And um, uh, as it should be, or as you would want it to be.
[00:14:54] Um, and it was the kind of the start of this school that, uh, ended up bringing me back. You know, I was surrounded by more Catholics and, um, you know, the deeper, uh, I guess you look for, you start off with school originally because, you know, for selfish reasons for your family, for your kids and things like that.
[00:15:14] Tom Cooper: Right, right.
[00:15:15] Troy Van Vliet: And then, um, you start seeing how many people are going to be affected by this and then you start seeing, uh, how their lives are going to be affected by, you know, their kids going to the school and, um, I think, okay, there’s a bigger, there’s a bigger need here.
[00:15:30] Tom Cooper: There is, and I think I will say, I’ve said it to the Catholic community and I’ve said to the Protestant community, when you trade the love of Christ, which is what drew us to him for the laws of the church. You are a dulling the witness to the unchurched without almost exception because we were touched by generosity, love, forgiveness. Well, why wouldn’t the world be touched by that?
[00:16:00] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:16:01] Tom Cooper: Right? So, I, and that’s one of the, you know, that’s one of the things I City in Focus tries to do. We try to usher in, we want to listen and help them heal and point them. The word we use, and I think the founder of Regent college who was an Oxford professor used was, we are pilgrims.
[00:16:20] Troy Van Vliet: Mm-hm.
[00:16:21] Tom Cooper: You and I and everybody in this city are pilgrims. Where are they on their pilgrimage? If the goal is ultimately to see God, which we believe is Christ.
[00:16:29] Troy Van Vliet: Mm-hm.
[00:16:29] Tom Cooper: The Trinity.
[00:16:30] Troy Van Vliet: Mm-hm.
[00:16:31] Tom Cooper: Are we with them as fellow Pilgrims? Are we standing and telling them? Right?
[00:16:36] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah, right.
[00:16:37] Tom Cooper: Yeah. And I think it wasn’t it Peter 1st Peter that said, be ready at any time to give a reasonable account of the hope you have in you. Don’t you tell them what they need? Don’t you tell them? You tell them what it did for you.
[00:16:52] Troy Van Vliet: Right.
[00:16:52] Tom Cooper: Why do you have hope? Tom Cooper.
[00:16:54] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:16:54] Tom Cooper: And quit preaching, tell your story, and that often builds a bridge to hear their story.
[00:17:02] Troy Van Vliet: Right.
[00:17:02] Tom Cooper: If that makes sense.
[00:17:03] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:17:03] Tom Cooper: That’s kind of what the, that’s part of the DNA of City in Focus.
[00:17:06] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. That’s, uh, that’s fantastic. Like, that’s something that, um, you know, the fact that your faith based, but you’re reaching out to everybody.
[00:17:19] Tom Cooper: Yeah.
[00:17:19] Troy Van Vliet: Is, uh, something to be admired and it’s being done right.
[00:17:23] Tom Cooper: Well, you, you to be, hope, you hope it is.
[00:17:25] Troy Van Vliet: You are to be commended for that.
[00:17:26] Tom Cooper: I will say one more thing. We, uh, when the, uh, pandemic came, everybody’s calling me and saying, well, what are we, the Christians are saying? What are we doing like the Olympics? Well, you have to chair this. I, no, I don’t. No, yeah, you do. Which I ended up doing. But when the pandemic came. What’s the response of the Christian community?
[00:17:44] So I wrote a letter draft, and we sent it out. It was signed by 200 Christians. Every bishop in the province signed it. Uh, bishops of Anglican, Jimmy Patterson, it, uh, the, uh, uh, so on at Santa Ono, all of them signed it saying, we pray for you, we care for the city. And, um, and we will, we encourage our community to volunteer.
[00:18:10] So someone said to me, that was a phenomenal letter. Someone liked the letter. It was a full-page ad in the sun and the province.
[00:18:18] Troy Van Vliet: Oh really?
[00:18:18] Tom Cooper: Fine, don’t care. Anyway, sunset set. Someone said, well, how did, how’d you write such a great letter? I said, I didn’t. They said, well, what did you do? I said, well. If you really want to know, I had two editors. I sent my draft to the Arch Archbishop of British Columbia’s diocese, and I sent the same draft to the president of Trinity Western University.
[00:18:41] Troy Van Vliet: Mm-hmm.
[00:18:41] Tom Cooper: And they both critiqued it. I took all their criticisms, and the letter was done.
[00:18:46] Troy Van Vliet: Wow.
[00:18:46] Tom Cooper: If that is what I believe. And what was interesting is both men were highly educated, highly biased, to their own, and all of their suggestions were simpler. Um, you might consider, here’s a thought, this might be a better, none of it was, and I just said, yep, I just took them all every week. So, I think that is also what part of the DNA of City in Focus, is helping us work together, right?
[00:19:12] Troy Van Vliet: That’s amazing. You talk, I’m going to go back to something you said earlier about, uh, bursaries, how you were the recipient of a bursary for your youngest son.
[00:19:22] Tom Cooper: Yeah. And then daughter?
[00:19:24] Troy Van Vliet: And daughter.
[00:19:25] Tom Cooper: Yeah.
[00:19:25] Troy Van Vliet: Wow. So, and you were compelled, you felt to give back.
[00:19:29] Tom Cooper: 100%
[00:19:29] Troy Van Vliet: and, um, long after.
[00:19:31] Tom Cooper: Yeah.
[00:19:32] Troy Van Vliet: Um, bursaries are important.
[00:19:35] Tom Cooper: They are, they’re amazingly important. When the lawsuit came to, uh, the First Nation lawsuit came to St. Thomas more and Vancouver college, which were tangentially connected to the religious order that went through the lawsuit.
[00:19:52] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:19:53] Tom Cooper: Uh, I think one school owed, Thomas Moore, I think owed eight or nine million dollars at VC or Was out ten eleven. So, one of my friends called and I’m in a Bible study with him and he said should I help St. Thomas Moore? I knew I mean, I knew with Peter Bull That the other side was going to be just fine.
[00:20:15] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:20:16] Tom Cooper: And I said, yeah, you should because your Catholic roots and you have a faith, but you’re also, you raise a lot of money in what you do in business. So, he called and signed up. It doesn’t surprise me that he was chair within six weeks. He raised, and worked with Peter, he raised nine million for that school.
[00:20:35] Then he stayed one more year and raised ten million dollars for the Science Center, and then he bowed out. And I asked him one day, I said, why’d you do this? I just called, because he was Catholic. He said, well, because when I was young and my mom was poor, uh, St. Thomas Moore gave me a bursary to go to school and help my mother. I never forgot.
[00:20:55] Now, the Bible says God is no man’s debtor. Think about what happened because the school was not having blinders on about a single mom or blinders on because maybe they didn’t go to church all the time. They thought of a kid that could be in their school. So, I see that time and again, that’s one of the motivations for me.
[00:21:14] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah, for sure. That’s huge.
[00:21:16] Tom Cooper: Yeah.
[00:21:17] Troy Van Vliet: Our founding principal for our school.
[00:21:19] Tom Cooper: Yeah.
[00:21:19] Troy Van Vliet: Michel DesLauriers, taught me in high school, when I was in grade 8, actually. And, uh, we were fortunate to get him when we were starting up the school.
[00:21:28] Tom Cooper: Right.
[00:21:28] Troy Van Vliet: We wanted to, uh, you know, get, have a principal that with a ton of experience, I could champion things right out of the gate.
[00:21:37] Tom Cooper: Right.
[00:21:37] Troy Van Vliet: And not a real, um, attractive position to go and start a school from scratch as a principal.
[00:21:44] Tom Cooper: Right, right.
[00:21:45] Troy Van Vliet: Like there’s a lot of work because, you know, you’ve talked to him and he would say, um, yeah, I’m the janitor. I’m the principal. I’m a teacher. I’m the bus driver.
[00:21:54] Tom Cooper: All of it, right, right.
[00:21:55] Troy Van Vliet: He does everything, you know, and for him to sign up for that in his, you know, later years of his career. It was huge. But one of the best things that he ever said, you know, when we were setting up what our philosophy was going to be and what have you with the school, he said, Troy, we never want to deny a family getting their kids a Catholic education for financial reasons.
[00:22:17] Tom Cooper: Right. Exactly.
[00:22:18] Troy Van Vliet: And proudly we have stuck to that.
[00:22:21] Tom Cooper: Right.
[00:22:21] Troy Van Vliet: You know, we didn’t know how we were going to do it.
[00:22:23] Tom Cooper: But you stuck to it.
[00:22:24] Troy Van Vliet: because there’s money involved.
[00:22:26] Tom Cooper: Right.
[00:22:26] Troy Van Vliet: You know, like no matter what, we’ve got to pay for this. But, um, we stuck to it and, um, and as you know, because you were a contributor to this too, we have a golf tournament every year now, or we had our first annual, um, uh, alumni golf tournament, very small alumni group we have right now.
[00:22:42] Tom Cooper: But I was at the dinner. I got the best thing; I had a free lunch.
[00:22:46] Troy Van Vliet: Free lunch. Well, you sponsored it. So, it wasn’t 100% free.
[00:22:49] Tom Cooper: Okay.
[00:22:49] Troy Van Vliet: You were a sponsor there, but, and thank you for that. But, um, our golf tournament is to raise money strictly for our bursaries.
[00:22:56] Tom Cooper: Ya.
[00:22:57] Troy Van Vliet: 100% for our bursaries, and the same thing, we just had our first annual Royals ball, 100 percent of the proceeds go. So when we raised over a quarter million dollars for those, with those two events, wonderful, just to go to the bursaries, because, um, you know, it’s a big, in our tuition which we don’t have the same kind of, uh, funding that are, um, the CISVA schools get, where the parishes chip in.
[00:23:20] Tom Cooper: Yeah.
[00:23:20] Troy Van Vliet: So, we’re a little bit more standard on our own.
[00:23:22] Tom Cooper: And you don’t have government money.
[00:23:23] Troy Van Vliet: And zero government money.
[00:23:24] Tom Cooper: You’re two steps away.
[00:23:26] Troy Van Vliet: Um, so our tuition fees are a little higher than what we would like them to be, but we’ve got to pay for this facility. We’ve got to pay, you know, there, there’s real costs involved.
[00:23:34] Um, but yet saying that we’re also telling, you know, families that are saying, well, we, we’d love to go. But we just can’t afford it, it’s not in our budget, we’re saying come anyway.
[00:23:43] Tom Cooper: Apply anyway. And give what you can. It doesn’t have to be zero.
[00:23:46] Troy Van Vliet: Give what you can.
[00:23:47] Tom Cooper: Give what you can. And many people.
[00:23:49] Troy Van Vliet: We’ll work it out.
[00:23:50] Tom Cooper: Many people will give more than you thought they would.
[00:23:52] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:23:52] Tom Cooper: Once they know they can go.
[00:23:53] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:23:53] Tom Cooper: Well, I can do 800 a month.
[00:23:55] Troy Van Vliet: Okay. All right.
[00:23:56] Tom Cooper: We’ll do the rest.
[00:23:56] Troy Van Vliet: Exactly.
[00:23:57] Tom Cooper: But the point is.
[00:23:58] Troy Van Vliet: Whatever the number is.
[00:23:58] Tom Cooper: Well, it’s one of the reasons, to be honest, I’m happy to help your school a bit.
[00:24:02] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:24:02] Tom Cooper: Because I like the philosophy. I think bursaries are one of the signs of the kingdoms at work.
[00:24:07] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:24:08] Tom Cooper: Right? And I, my kids, uh, I went to St. George’s, my boys, uh, Dr. Crofton. And St. George’s, uh, is very expensive.
[00:24:20] Troy Van Vliet: Mm-hm.
[00:24:20] Tom Cooper: And a good friend of mine, lapsed Catholic, good friend of mine, I just entered, I signed up, joined, had no money to pay for it.
[00:24:29] Troy Van Vliet: Hm.
[00:24:29] Tom Cooper: And one of my close friends said, I’ll pay their tuition. And he paid all of them, five years for each boy. And, uh, and I, and then I was in meetings with people because I knew half the crowd because of the city. And whenever they say, well, we want the best boys, I said, no, you don’t.
[00:24:47] Troy Van Vliet: Mm-hm.
[00:24:47] Tom Cooper: You want the wealthiest best boys. If you want the best boys, you got to get an endowment behind you.
[00:24:53] Troy Van Vliet: Ya, ya.
[00:24:54] Tom Cooper: Massive endowment. And I think, and they’ve changed, right? They now can do it because they understand they want diversity. And I think the Catholic school. Yeah, I think it, I think bursaries are the coin of the realm. It builds gratitude by the parents. It builds future gratitude by kids who get changed like my friend at St. Thomas.
[00:25:18] Troy Van Vliet: Mm-hm, ya.
[00:25:18] Tom Cooper: So, there’s no downside. It’s a great idea.
[00:25:21] Troy Van Vliet: Ya.
[00:25:21] Tom Cooper: And I think it’s, and I think St. Mark’s and Corpus Christi have started going in that direction, too. And I’ve helped raise a lot of money for them.
[00:25:28] Troy Van Vliet: Right. Speaking of St. Mark’s and Corpus Christi, can you tell us a little bit about that? Because, shamefully, I don’t know as much as I should. My daughter just started first year university at Catholic Pacific College at Trinity Western.
[00:25:43] Tom Cooper: Okay.
[00:25:44] Troy Van Vliet: So, at Corpus Christi was a consideration as well. But first of all, there’s the names of two colleges in the same facility, same vicinity.
[00:25:53] Tom Cooper: Right. One’s undergraduate, one’s graduate.
[00:25:56] Troy Van Vliet: Okay.
[00:25:56] Tom Cooper: So, St. Mark’s College is Dean is graduate school, undergraduates, Corpus Christi.
[00:26:01] Troy Van Vliet: Okay.
[00:26:02] Tom Cooper: I think they’ve; they’re trying to figure out Corpus Christi is an in-house word. If I could be so clear where St. Mark’s is kind of right? I know they’re trying to figure out how this all works.
[00:26:13] Troy Van Vliet: Ya.
[00:26:13] Tom Cooper: But it’s all but your question is I think they if I was giving what I have helped to do is build bridges between the philanthropic community and kids getting bursaries. And it’s interesting, a lot of people that aren’t Catholics will still give bursaries.
[00:26:34] Troy Van Vliet: Mm-hmm.
[00:26:34] Tom Cooper: To help kids.
[00:26:35] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:26:35] Tom Cooper: Right. They just will. So, you have to create the opportunity.
[00:26:38] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:26:38] Tom Cooper: And if I can be so blunt, if I can give any advice to it, to a school, like are you, your school is, my argument is, you want to raise money? Get out of the ghetto. So, I the first year we had a fundraiser for bursaries. We had it at an Italian restaurant in East Van that was also a place where you could dance and play jazz. So anyway, it was packed and what was interesting? We asked a Frank Giustra to speak, and someone said is he a catholic? I said, I don’t care.
[00:27:15] Troy Van Vliet: Hm.
[00:27:16] Tom Cooper: I want the unchurched to show up, they showed up in droves. The Christian community went because of the Catholic connection, the non- Christian community. They knew Frank. And at the end of the day when they were saying, what does it cost to have a kid go for two years, 25 grand, Frank said, I’m in and boom, boom, boom, boom around the room.
[00:27:36] Friends of Frank’s raised their hand. Yup. Yup. Yup. Yup. And so, Archbishop Miller wrote me and said, what were we doing there? And I said, well, your grace, it’s called, um, basically I said, it’s called philanthropic evangelism. And I said, here’s why he wrote back. Oh, okay. He didn’t. Right. But then the next year, uh, we asked, uh, Michael Audain
[00:27:58] Troy Van Vliet: yes.
[00:27:58] Tom Cooper: And I said, no, you can’t have it on campus. No, I’m going to go. So I went to an art gallery, which was across the street from, uh, Yeah, Emily Carr, and I went to the gallery across it and I said, I’d like to have your room and have a, and my, one of the St. Mark’s people said, this will never work. I said, it will only work here.
[00:28:17] Troy Van Vliet: Hm.
[00:28:17] Tom Cooper: We sold out. Michael Audain, and then when they heard that Michael Audain was the speaker, he was a major donor to Emily Carr. We were given the auditorium free and the mic system, and then we walked across the lane to the dinner. And we raised 300,000$. And again, it was packed with the unchurched.
[00:28:36] Troy Van Vliet: Mm-hm.
[00:28:37] Tom Cooper: I have no desire to coddle the church, but I think the unchurched also need to be able to see this and have it happened.
[00:28:44] So, and you just have to, but you’re still correctly tilling the soil of those you already know, which is absolutely important.
[00:28:52] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:28:53] Tom Cooper: Right? But then, on the other hand, as you get better, bigger, and more sound, try something different.
[00:28:59] Troy Van Vliet: Right.
[00:28:59] Tom Cooper: That’s all I’m saying.
[00:29:00] Troy Van Vliet: Right. No, for sure. And as our community grows,
[00:29:03] Tom Cooper: Yeah.
[00:29:04] Troy Van Vliet: Um, it’s not just the Catholic community that grows within our school, there is, there will be many non-Catholics, we already have non-Catholics,
[00:29:11] Tom Cooper: Right.
[00:29:12] Troy Van Vliet: That are in school today. Um, it will grow in ratio with as well. And, um, just before Christmas we had, um, um, Rick Diamond.
[00:29:24] Tom Cooper: Yeah.
[00:29:24] Troy Van Vliet: Who isn’t a Catholic
[00:29:25] Tom Cooper: Jewish family
[00:29:26] Troy Van Vliet: and, uh, Jewish family. And, um, but, um, what we’re doing with our school resonates with him. And, um, Rick has got a very generous heart.
[00:29:37] Tom Cooper: He does.
[00:29:38] Troy Van Vliet: And, um, of course, he’s got a Rick’s Heart Foundation, which he works with the homeless and the, uh, the drug addicted in Vancouver. He drives that van around himself. In the middle of the night, um, like what a guy. And, um, so he, um, he’s learned about our school and what we’re doing and all of the wonderful things that we’re, um, and our outreach programs.
[00:30:01] I mean, my, uh, my youngest daughters in the, uh, at SJPII. Um, she’s in the sandwich club. And what does the sandwich club do? Well, they make sandwiches every week, and they go out to the homeless in our local White Rock community, and the sandwich is good. Um, which is one, and Rick, once again, he’s stepped up as a non-Catholic, and he’s pledged a million dollars to go towards our, uh, theater. Which is huge?
[00:30:27] Tom Cooper: and it’s a statement of width.
[00:30:30] Troy Van Vliet: It is!
[00:30:30] Tom Cooper: We’ll get into that more. But the width is a Jewish community. I mean, uh, another very wealthy Jewish family, uh, built, uh, the largest halfway house for, uh, women for Salvation Army. Jewish donor that they’re engaged if you let them and this guy, if I was giving you advice, which I guess I can, because you can delete anything I say, um, is I at the right time, have him sponsor an event.
[00:31:00] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:31:01] Tom Cooper: Up to you, bring who you want. And what do you want us to talk about?
[00:31:04] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:31:04] Tom Cooper: And then they get a letter, an email from him.
[00:31:07] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:31:07] Tom Cooper: This is, I’ve seen this as important. You will have an entirely different feel in that room.
[00:31:12] Troy Van Vliet: Ya.
[00:31:13] Tom Cooper: Entirely different feel, but you’re, and he might do it over time as he sees the work, but you want that. It’s those events that draw in a wider net.
[00:31:25] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. Right. Amazing.
[00:31:26] He also wants to do, to set up a thrift store. that some of our students will work at
[00:31:32] Tom Cooper: good.
[00:31:33] Troy Van Vliet: And, um, that the proceeds will go back to the school as well. And, um, so the bursary, the bursaries are huge.
[00:31:40] Tom Cooper: Great. It’s also part of the kingdom, right?
[00:31:44] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:31:45] Tom Cooper: Yes. No, that it is.
[00:31:47] Troy Van Vliet: So, um, and St. Mark’s and Corpus Christi, what do you know? What kind of numbers of students? I don’t, I know,
[00:31:55] Tom Cooper: I know that, uh, St. Mark’s Corpus Christi has really grown over the years, really grown, and I don’t know the total numbers.
[00:32:04] Troy Van Vliet: Hm.
[00:32:04] Tom Cooper: But I know that a lot of kids attend, and I know that, and as the, if we think about it, the pandemic didn’t shrink our net, it widened it.
[00:32:16] Troy Van Vliet: Yes.
[00:32:18] Tom Cooper: And so, all now of a sudden, and you might think about this down the road. Now, all of a sudden, someone wants to take your school. We’ll have them all videoed. And they’re, they live in a wheelchair and they’re a thousand miles north of here. What do you care?
[00:32:31] Troy Van Vliet: Hm-mm.
[00:32:32] Tom Cooper: Have them take the class, hire someone to work with them and pay. And it’s a little overhead, but the class, you have no idea. It’s widened it out. And when I saw one of the comments in the Catholic archdiocese way before I was a Catholic. But when I saw that they were going to say, well, we need to get people back in church. Stop the services. I wrote the senior management said nonsense, use it, keep it, go visit them, be in touch with them.
[00:33:02] Troy Van Vliet: Hm.
[00:33:03] Tom Cooper: You’ve been allowed a net of new people. Why would you truncate it back to, we’re going to define a Catholic by coming in. You don’t know where they are. They might be non-Catholics.
[00:33:12] Troy Van Vliet: Mm-hmm.
[00:33:12] Tom Cooper: Anyway, that’s right.
[00:33:16] Troy Van Vliet: You’ve sponsored or produced the or put on the prayer breakfast. I do it here in Vancouver Can you tell us a little bit about that?
[00:33:23] Tom Cooper: Well, it was started the prayer breakfast was started. The one-minute summary is there’s a guy named Abraham Vereide who was a Norwegian, Committed Christian and he decided to go to the United States at the age of 19. He landed in the Statue of Liberty in New York made his way across the country fell in love with a Pentecostal pastor’s daughter married her and he moved to Seattle. And the basic argument was of him Was he felt called to be an evangelist?
[00:33:54] And he had his wife and then over time in bible studies Over time a very wealthy businessman one. It would be the equivalent of someone who owned Hudson Bay.
[00:34:03] Troy Van Vliet: Hm.
[00:34:03] Tom Cooper: Who knew him? uh after and they of course the append, uh, the uh, they were coming out of the great depression and In this guy said, you know, uh, you this guy Abraham said to this wealthy guy you need to come to God and he said what do you want me to do? My friends also need Christ. And instantly Abraham Vereide knew his calling for life.
[00:34:33] Troy Van Vliet: Mm-hm.
[00:34:33] Tom Cooper: Then this guy called a Bible study in the most in the club in Seattle, Washington Athletic Club. It started with 18 people, but he said, no, they read the Bible, had breakfast, talked about the Bible, what it meant to them, prayed for each other, gone in one hour.
[00:34:50] Um, three years later, one of his, those people through their hat and the rain became governor. And so, they went down to have breakfast with their good friend who was a governor, started the first prayer breakfast in the state, in the United States, in Canada.
[00:35:06] Troy Van Vliet: Ah.
[00:35:06] Tom Cooper: Then more and more people he was then because he knew them, he started meeting senators and congressmen and philanthropists. And he worked his way across the country and he’s in some event welcoming President Eisenhower.
[00:35:19] Troy Van Vliet: Hm.
[00:35:19] Tom Cooper: And Eisenhower says I want you to move to Washington DC and do here nationally what you’re doing there, and you know. And so, he moved and, uh, and Hilton, who is a friend said, I’ll sponsor the breakfast, and the presidential prayer breakfast started right there and inviting you invite leaders.
[00:35:44] You don’t invite spiritual sided. You invite leaders and ambassadors and congressmen and, uh, and they’ve been going on for 60 years. So, then they spawned them. Yeah, you have an Ottawa prayer breakfast and then you had an Alberta prayer, and it was started. Almost 60 years ago in British Columbia and the whole goal of Breakfast is to have to invite the leadership and gently you’ve been there and gently encouraged them to remember God in the midst of all they’re doing, but it’s really gentle.
[00:36:13] Troy Van Vliet: Ya.
[00:36:13] Tom Cooper: We’re not trying. And, uh, I push the goal of that breakfast is to push out the extreme elements. I don’t need them. They can come, but there’s not there.
[00:36:24] Troy Van Vliet: Right.
[00:36:24] Tom Cooper: And, uh, at someone said, well, how do you know if it’s a thousand people will show up.
[00:36:28] Troy Van Vliet: Ya.
[00:36:29] Tom Cooper: More this year, but and I said, well, I said, uh, the evangelicals will walk up and say, you know, the speaker talked too much about Jesus in the Bible.
[00:36:40] No, no, didn’t talk enough about Jesus in the Bible. And then the non evangelicals, the nonfaith community walk up and say, too much about Jesus, Tom. And I went, look, I think we’re kind of where we want to be.
[00:36:51] Troy Van Vliet: Right in the middle.
[00:36:52] Tom Cooper: Right in the middle. So, the goal of the prayer breakfast is to facilitate the gathering of the group.
[00:36:57] Troy Van Vliet: Right.
[00:36:58] Tom Cooper: So, at a certain point, you, you’ve come and a certain point, you go, okay, I now get it. I’m going to bring, uh major donors a couple of secular buddies and we’re going to sit and enjoy the breakfast, or the dinner doesn’t really matter.
[00:37:10] Troy Van Vliet: Hmm-mm.
[00:37:11] Tom Cooper: So that that’s the DNA is that and the reason it’s the largest in the nation is that we have kept true to not being proselytizing, right?
[00:37:19] Troy Van Vliet: Right.
[00:37:20] Tom Cooper: You and you have prayer breakfasts in the British Columbia that are Basically Christian rallies.
[00:37:26] Troy Van Vliet: Ya. Well, what’s really nice to, what’s really nice about this is, uh, the word prayer is right in the name.
[00:37:34] Tom Cooper: Mm-hm.
[00:37:34] Troy Van Vliet: And, uh, so people know they’re coming there. You know, this is what this is about. And there’s a prayer. And there’s the prayer, and there’s going to be, I got to lead one of those, the closing prayer.
[00:37:43] Tom Cooper: Yeah. You did a good job.
[00:37:44] Troy Van Vliet: Well, thank you for that.
[00:37:45] Tom Cooper: No, very good job.
[00:37:46] Troy Van Vliet: Um, so, um. Yeah, that’s something I’m an advocate for. I encourage those that if you’re contemplating going to definitely go to that.
[00:37:55] Tom Cooper: Yeah, it’s a good, it’s a good thing. And bring your MP or MLA.
[00:37:59] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:38:00] I mean, the premier is always there, the leader of the opposition is always there.
[00:38:04] Brent Chapman, you’re on the, Brent Chapman, and um, he’s our new MLA.
[00:38:08] Tom Cooper: He would probably come.
[00:38:09] Troy Van Vliet: He will come.
[00:38:10] Tom Cooper: Is the MLA, uh, is he, uh, the liberal, is he?
[00:38:14] Troy Van Vliet: conservative?
[00:38:15] Tom Cooper: Yeah, well, the, uh, the deputy whip of the Senate is Senator Yonah Martin.
[00:38:21] Troy Van Vliet: Uh huh.
[00:38:21] Tom Cooper: And she comes.
[00:38:22] Troy Van Vliet: Okay.
[00:38:23] Tom Cooper: And she does the reading for parliament. And you know why I invited her? She doesn’t have to be from a party. She’s not introduced. Senator Yonah Martin. It doesn’t say she’s conservative or liberal. She does not care.
[00:38:34] Troy Van Vliet: Ya.
[00:38:35] Tom Cooper: Right? And so, she stands up and brings greetings from Parliament.
[00:38:38] Troy Van Vliet: I love it.
[00:38:38] Tom Cooper: Why would I argue that?
[00:38:40] Troy Van Vliet: Yes.
[00:38:41] Tom Cooper: You get my point. Okay.
[00:38:43] Troy Van Vliet: You also do, there’s a dinner.
[00:38:45] Tom Cooper: There’s a dinner and the dinner started 10 years ago. It allows the community to have more fellowship. And originally the dinner was set to informally meet some people. But the great thing about the dinner is there’s hundreds of people and they start walking around and chatting. The breakfast is so surgically quick, but the dinner allows them to
[00:39:02] Troy Van Vliet: A little more socializing.
[00:39:02] Tom Cooper: And you can just watch them. It’s like chaos, but good chaos. And so, we bring, um, a speaker and they can be much more blunt about their faith in Christ. Uh, it’s more of a, everyone’s invited, but it’s a little more focused on faith.
[00:39:17] Troy Van Vliet: Okay.
[00:39:17] Tom Cooper: Yeah. It’s great. Yeah. We’ve had everyone for the person. Who’s the guy who was the professor who won the award with the AIDS vaccine? Uh, uh, uh, Montaner, Julio Montaner.
[00:39:29] Troy Van Vliet: Hmm.
[00:39:30] Tom Cooper: And when he came, he handed out a letter that he had received from the pope for all the work he had done for AIDS. Catholic background.
[00:39:38] Troy Van Vliet: Oh.
[00:39:39] Tom Cooper: That’s kind of cool. But you have them. You have Jae Kim.
[00:39:43] Troy Van Vliet: Yes.
[00:39:43] Tom Cooper: She worked for Frank Giustra, who’s a billionaire, seven years. We interviewed her. What did you learn? And we just different people, uh, Peter Ash, who was born albinism and Peter. Uh, he has been a major philanthropist in tens, uh, in Tanzania. Because of the Albinos there are killed, are maimed for body parts. And he has given the last 10 years of his life. By giving scholarships, lobbying, paying people to go to the outback and whatnot, and putting kids, Albino kids, in school.
[00:40:17] And now it doesn’t happen at all. He’s won every award the world can give him for that. But his mother died on the streets of Halifax, but she’s mentally ill. So, the three brothers who now are all committed Christians, built Violet’s place for the hard to house women in East Van in her honor.
[00:40:34] Yeah, we have to remember, I want to say one thing, you separate talking about it from modeling it, you are ineffective in your witness. It is the word and the deed together. I was talking to a gal who was a prostitute. Uh, and I know it sounds kind of bleary, but it’s the only world. And I said, how did you end up? Uh, she would not mind me using her name, but it doesn’t matter. We’ll call her Sally, and I said, how did you end up becoming to faith and leaving prostitution?
[00:41:07] Troy Van Vliet: Hm-m.
[00:41:07] Tom Cooper: Do you know what her answer was? She worked all nights and up walks this Midwestern blonde hair freshman from Trinity Western and hands her a cup of coffee. And chats with her, doesn’t, just gets to know her. Does it every month for six months. Finally, this woman says, well, why do you do this? Oh, I go to Trinity Western, and we’re asked, we can volunteer to come down and just hang out and feed and give coffee to people.
[00:41:34] Never talked about her faith. And finally, this woman said, well, why? And slowly that question led to her ultimately giving her life to Christ. Oh. And leaving prostitution. And we think Jesus was not thinking about it when he said, give a cup of water. You know? He was thinking about it.
[00:41:50] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. Yeah. He knew what he was talking about, right?
[00:41:52] Tom Cooper: Yeah, exactly. And what’s the old saying? Uh, when in, uh, preached the gospel in season and outta season and when? necessary use words. We are drawn to the St Francis’s of this world. Naturally.
[00:42:05] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah, absolutely. That’s living it. That’s yeah.
[00:42:08] Tom Cooper: A hundred percent in the faith.
[00:42:09] Troy Van Vliet: That’s living the faith.
[00:42:10] Tom Cooper: How am I doing over there?
[00:42:12] Troy Van Vliet: Okay.
[00:42:13] Tom Cooper: Well, you can cut me off anytime.
[00:42:15] Troy Van Vliet: Well, not before we talk about another thing that seems almost counter, uh,
[00:42:20] Tom Cooper: Oh, the Scotch.
[00:42:21] Troy Van Vliet: This scotch event.
[00:42:23] Tom Cooper: Okay. So, this, okay. Well, I go to it. A church that there is run by Jesuits and I’m always trying to think of what how I’m trying to think of now You know me better. How would I get the unchurched there?
[00:42:35] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:42:35] Tom Cooper: And how would I get the cross section of the church there? Well, I like scotch. Uh, and I, uh, someone said, well, you help this, the St. Paul’s in one of their divisions raised a million dollars. So, it’s something that they needed. Why? Oh, the guy who ran the program brought me a bottle of scotch and asked.
[00:42:54] And my friend said, really, Thomas? But I mean, but anyway, so. Having so many people I know that have like scotch. I said, well, why don’t we do it? And then I read that the scotch the Nationals Jesuit organization has a scotch dinner where they have dinner and have scotch, and they talk about their work It’s the big event for the Jesuits in Canada. I said, well we can do a mini one.
[00:43:16] So then I asked Archbishop Miller because I know him well, I said can we use the can we use the big hall? He said of course. And, uh, so that’s why we started and then the fundraising aspect is kind of a, the fellowship is the part we have a world, well, a British renowned, uh, the person who knows Scotches who helps us pick them. But the point was, if we make money, it goes to these places, and they go to three bursaries for St. Mark’s and Corpus Christi. We help support spiritual work with students through the Jesuit work on campus. And we give money to the, um, Vice President Francis Mazza is vice president of the department of, uh, spirituality, mission and ethics. And we give money to that. And this year we’re giving it because they have seminars for all Christian leaders in the medical community in BC. Every couple of years and we’re helping that program.
[00:44:12] Troy Van Vliet: Ahhh.
[00:44:12] Tom Cooper: So that’s why we do it, and you were there,
[00:44:16] Troy Van Vliet: I was there last year; I bought a ticket for this year as well.
[00:44:18] Tom Cooper: I’m so thrilled.
[00:44:19] Troy Van Vliet: Not just there for the scotch. Well, kind of.
[00:44:22] Tom Cooper: But a lot of people don’t drink scotch. We don’t care.
[00:44:25] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:44:25] Tom Cooper: Just, they all the spread is good and have a glass of wine and someone said, well, the wine’s expense. I don’t care pay 50 bucks; I have a glass of water here. What we also want to make sure is if it’s for everyone a lot of people don’t drink.
[00:44:37] Troy Van Vliet: Hm.
[00:44:37] Tom Cooper: And we want them to come right Archbishop Miller. It’s kind of fun when he kind of walks in Waits around for about 30 minutes just like but he’s basically saying I he approves of this right?
[00:44:48] Troy Van Vliet: Yes.
[00:44:48] Tom Cooper: And we give a discount to the senior staff of the archdiocese, we want them to come.
[00:44:53] Troy Van Vliet: Mm-hm. You’ve done to change directions here again.
[00:44:57] Tom Cooper: Yeah.
[00:44:57] Troy Van Vliet: Um, you’ve done, uh, some fundraising for, to combat some of the issues in, um, sex trafficking, things like that. We have; can you tell us a little bit more about that?
[00:45:09] Tom Cooper: Well, fundraising that we get involved in is, um, often, uh, for issues in the city that we think need to be highlighted, right? So, uh, and, uh, a lot of it’s on the back of the prayer breakfast. We’ll have someone come in like Wally Buono came and he was amazing. And we tell people just tell your story, please don’t evangelize. We had one of the founders. of Nordstrom’s come years ago, just tell your story. Don’t evangelize.
[00:45:48] Anyway, so what we do with the issues that we come across are issues of the city. They include sex trafficking, first nations, uh, nonprofits and how they struggle is a big issue, research, right? Which is happening at St. Paul’s, but was also Julio Montaner did research for the Aids.
[00:46:08] Troy Van Vliet: Mm-hm.
[00:46:08] Tom Cooper: Uh, anything businesses, uh, Michael Audain, uh, as a person models philanthropy. So, when he was interviewed, uh, for example, at the prayer breakfast, he talked about art. And he kind of was having fun saying, well, a lot of these things you have always have social issues, but have art.
[00:46:34] But what people don’t know about him was the next day, there was an open house where Michael Audain and Bob Lee’s foundation built 172 units of condos for the needy in the heart of East Van, but he never talks about it. Yeah, he loves art, which is okay. I’m sure, I’m sure, which is fun. But my point is, you have to find, you pick needs or situations where you, and then you can.
[00:47:03] I remember one year, uh, we started a thing and Frank Giustra, Angus Reed, John Mackay, and I’m missing one, they started a thing called Backyard and Beyond. And they would send a letter out to their philanthropic friends, and we’d pick one issue in East Van before Christmas, like, let’s take, um, let’s take, uh, Covenant House was one of them one year, and they’d help with kids and drugs.
[00:47:25] So then, we talk about an international work that also works with kids that are in drugs and are that need housing. And then we have Covenant house has to feed them and then they talk about what they do, and then international work comes that’s Christian and says here’s what we do. And we do not allow a pitch. Take the material you’re talking to a wealthy crowd take the material and do whatever you want It’s what we do, but it was kind of fun. We did it for years.
[00:47:54] Troy Van Vliet: Hm. And how effective do you find that when you don’t do a pitch, and you don’t do an ask? Let’s say.
[00:48:01] Tom Cooper: it depends on the crowd. The real wealth doesn’t need their arm twisted. They just need to feel compelled.
[00:48:06] Troy Van Vliet: Right. So, you could you get asked though?
[00:48:09] Tom Cooper: Yeah. We say we encourage you to support these, but we’re not asking for you to give us a cheque today. We don’t want it.
[00:48:15] Troy Van Vliet: Right.
[00:48:16] Tom Cooper: Take this, read it, talk to your family, your foundations. We’ll do whatever you want, but we think they are worthy of consideration.
[00:48:22] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:48:23] Tom Cooper: And one was salvation, one was Salvation Army. They gave everybody egg salad sandwich. I thought no one’s ever going to come again. And then we had the, uh, and they deal with people, uh, a lot of people that are homeless and need to be fed or cared for and World Vision came in and talked about how they do it internationally.
[00:48:41] Troy Van Vliet: Oh.
[00:48:41] Tom Cooper: And again, there’s information to take with you.
[00:48:43] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:48:44] Tom Cooper: We encourage you to consider being involved.
[00:48:46] Troy Van Vliet: Mm-hmm.
[00:48:46] Tom Cooper: But that’s it. In that crowd.
[00:48:47] Troy Van Vliet: Right. In that crowd. So, it’s got to be, um, event specific in terms of how it works.
[00:48:51] Tom Cooper: It can be, or need specific, right? Uh, the sex trafficking is, sex trafficking is one of the major issues of British Columbia.
[00:48:57] Troy Van Vliet: Ya.
[00:48:58] Tom Cooper: 50 % of, uh, all sex trafficking involves First Nation women in Canada. So, I, uh, I am, I help a foundation that does the strategic work, and they have hired First Nation women to start the work in Canada. They work with overseas. But they now do both. So that’s it. Sometimes its topic driven. Um.
[00:49:20] Troy Van Vliet: Ya.
[00:49:20] Tom Cooper: And that allows the passion to occur.
[00:49:25] Troy Van Vliet: I have, um, I’m going to actually read this question. Yeah, this is one that we have written down here and you’ve got some answers for this already. But how does Catholic education, particularly the focus on faith-based teachings and servant leadership influence the initiatives you are involved in?
[00:49:45] Tom Cooper: Well, I want to first say that, um, Catholic education, if you study the history of the church, um, schools, the Jesuits have helped over a hundred colleges worldwide. Schools and hospitals has been one of their foundational DNAs. That’s what they do. And on the back of that, because I believe they do it, uh, I believe that they do it because if you’re reaching children, uh, so there’s your schools.
[00:50:20] Troy Van Vliet: Hm.
[00:50:20] Tom Cooper: And then you’re also, uh, you are also helping, uh, people, uh, well, if you’re doing, if you’re helping people medically.
[00:50:33] Uh, you’ve incarnationally, sorry for the large word, are witnessing what Christ does. So, I think the coin of the realm in the Catholic community is often the schools,
[00:50:48] Troy Van Vliet: Mmhmm.
[00:50:49] Tom Cooper: Right? Because they’re the ones that stop in a way helping people pause, feel loved by word and deed, learn about a needy world. Uh, and these are all wonderful things. I, uh, one of my closest friends, he really wanted. He wanted to get into OLPH because he liked my kids. He could have bought; he could have bought OLPH.
[00:51:13] So I got him in, and he had a couple of years, and it was his exposure to that. Then he, he’s quite a committed Protestant, but his exposure to that rocked his world, that his child had been helped.
[00:51:26] Troy Van Vliet: Mm-hmm.
[00:51:26] Tom Cooper: He went on, took his child to saints. But the story goes, then he started meeting. Then he ran into an event that he helped sponsor with archbishop Miller at the Vancouver club to talk about his life. He and Michael Audain and a couple of others did it. But the thing about this person is he saw finally the quality necessary at the church.
[00:51:49] And he saw the need in the Catholic church. He is one of the two philanthropists that bankrolled the divine renovation. The founding of it. Protestant.
[00:51:59] Troy Van Vliet: Ah.
[00:51:59] Tom Cooper: He’s the largest donor of Alpha in the world. And when Archbishop Miller wanted to start Alpha, I get the note and I said, don’t have to look any further. This person loves who you are.
[00:52:13] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:52:14] Tom Cooper: Invite him to lunch. And he sat down we want to start this, and he just started. So, there’s another thing. Get out of your ghettos, Catholics and Protestants have so much more in common. Right?
[00:52:26] Troy Van Vliet: Hm.
[00:52:26] Tom Cooper: So, I think, um, so adult education or Christian education or kids in school just start, they are very powerful for cross pollination. That’s all I’m saying.
[00:52:37] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:52:38] Tom Cooper: And I think the fact that they’re taught morals and ethics. They don’t have to do whatever, whatever the day’s issue is, right?
[00:52:46] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:52:46] Tom Cooper: Right. And so, my, uh, my, one of my grandchildren is exceptionally gifted, goes to a gifted school, uh, skipped grades already. And, uh, they had, uh, two or three months on the whole issue of, uh, pride, gay pride.
[00:53:02] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:53:03] Tom Cooper: And he’s a deep faith, though he’s young, right?
[00:53:06] Troy Van Vliet: Hm.
[00:53:06] Tom Cooper: But his sister and his family are deeply committed Christians. And what I watched was, II said to him, I said, well, here’s what you should do. Or I can do as I’m going to call the school and say, well, if it’s a big deal for 1% of society or 2% to go three months, 10% go to church. I would like 10% of the school’s year focused on faith of Christ.
[00:53:31] Troy Van Vliet: Ya.
[00:53:32] Tom Cooper: Right. So, I just think and now he’s saved a bit because of strong roots in the Catholic community.
[00:53:38] Troy Van Vliet: Hm.
[00:53:38] Tom Cooper: And he may end up in VC now. But my point is the Catholic community. And again, I want to say it’s as important as it is true to the witness of the Christian faith in word and deed. Because everybody, including children, want to know what is the bottom line. And if we don’t say it’s who you are, not only what you do, it’s who you are and how you live and what the Catholic community does often in Vancouver, even at St. Mark’s is that the head Jerry goes with a lot of Corpus Christi kids once a week to serve food at the door is open downtown, right? I have taken a fair share of unchurched people there. They just, this happens.
[00:54:28] But I just think education of every kind. And when you can build bridges, uh, with your bursaries and with your kids, understand the world and engage the world and then bring speakers that have a faith, but are really dive into medicine or they really dive into some social cause. Okay. They’re seeing examples. That’s all. And so have lay people, not professionals come in because they’re what they’re going to be. That’s what these kids are going to be.
[00:54:55] Troy Van Vliet: Right.
[00:54:56] Tom Cooper: I don’t know if that makes any sense.
[00:54:57] Troy Van Vliet: Yes. No, it makes it, it makes a ton of sense. A ton of sense. And the idea, excuse me, of building servant leaders in our school to go out and, uh, enter the world with a foundation of, uh, that’s, uh, grounded in truth and faith. Um, is huge because that.
[00:55:19] Tom Cooper: massive
[00:55:20] Troy Van Vliet: and that’s
[00:55:21] Tom Cooper: massive
[00:55:21] Troy Van Vliet: missing in our, in today’s world when our teachers are, well. The schools are, they’ve become, they already are secular and, um, but they’re indoctrinated with what, you know, our kids see on TikTok every day and there’s no, Faith in that at all.
[00:55:39] Tom Cooper: And there’s, and there’s no action. And have you seen the movie Chariots of Fire?
[00:55:45] Troy Van Vliet: Yes.
[00:55:45] Tom Cooper: Okay. The Chariots of Fire, a friend of mine, one of my closest friends. So, in fact, I helped do his wedding. Um, he was in the camp where Eric Liddell was, Eric Liddell was a missionary.
[00:55:58] Troy Van Vliet: Hm.
[00:55:58] Tom Cooper: He got put into the camp. And, um, and John is a Protestant, uh, Cambridge born, I think, and bred to be an Anglican, great guy.
[00:56:09] But anyway, the essence of the story is they were all there, Catholics, Protestants, missionaries, whatever. Now, what’s interesting, watch how it has to be servant leadership. A lot of priests were there. from Catholic churches. So, when the Catholic church was one of the first to negotiate getting them out, uh, a different groups left different times and Eric Liddell died in it, with a cerebral hemorrhage in the camp.
[00:56:37] Troy Van Vliet: Hm.
[00:56:38] Tom Cooper: And he was a Pied Piper apparently. But I said to John, why? And people wept when the priest left and why did they weep? They shared the food, and they dug the latrines, and they watched. The witness of a leader, the servanthood of a leader, and it ricocheted throughout the camp. That’s why we want our kids to dig the latrines of society and different things.
[00:57:09] But to me, those are these and the servant leader is what Jesus was, you know, I came to serve, right?
[00:57:15] Troy Van Vliet: You just gave me goosebumps.
[00:57:15] Tom Cooper: So, I think it models on his actions. You’re right on spot on.
[00:57:20] Troy Van Vliet: It’s amazing. Amazing. Great words, Tom. Thank you.
[00:57:24] Tom Cooper: My pleasure.
[00:57:24] Troy Van Vliet: Thanks for coming here today and for sharing your story with us and what you do. I’m very grateful for what you do in the city. with City in Focus.
[00:57:32] Tom Cooper: Thank you.
[00:57:33] Troy Van Vliet: Keep up the great work.
[00:57:34] Tom Cooper: Thank you. And it’s been a pleasure and a joy to do. And I wish you best of luck as you built the school, and you get the finances that you need for all the bursaries. that God puts in your lap.
[00:57:45] Troy Van Vliet: Thanks. Well, I asked him to lead me where he needs me. So, um, hopefully right now it’s right here. So
[00:57:52] Tom Cooper: Yeah.
[00:57:52] Troy Van Vliet: Thanks again.
[00:57:53] Tom Cooper: My pleasure.
[00:57:53] Troy Van Vliet: Thank you everybody for, uh, for watching and for listening. Um, please be sure to subscribe because we’ve got many episodes coming up as well. So, uh, with lots of good topics and lots of good, uh, company like Tom Cooper. Thanks Tom.
[00:58:07] Tom Cooper: Thank you. Enjoyed it. Appreciate it very much.
[00:58:10] Troy Van Vliet: All right. Thank you for listening to Catholic Education Matters. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow the podcast on your favorite listening platform, rate it, and also leave a review. Don’t forget to share this episode with your friends and family to help spread the word about the impact of Catholic education.
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