That's the astonishing amount middle-class alumni and friends donated in just 13 days.
An 8-year-old dropped off an envelope laden with $12 in coins.
Grateful grads sent checks for $100 if they could spare it, less if they couldn't.
The biggest fish insisted on anonymity after donating $100,000, telling Olson, "Father, my friends know I did well, they just don't know how well."
By any measure, the Bonner-Prendie fund-raising sprint represents as deep a well of support as the Eakins effort - deeper, if you consider these givers possess far less.
"We've gotten more support in the last two weeks," Olson notes, "than in the last four years combined." Every penny speaks to enduring faith and appreciation.
But will it be enough?
A fire wall for the faithful
In their heyday, Bonner and Prendie, as they are known, had a combined enrollment of 5,000.
Today, 950 students occupy the 33-acre campus in Upper Darby.
The death knell rang on Friday, Jan. 6. The committee cited the schools' $330,000 annual deficit. And at $900,000 a year to operate, the largely empty buildings are the most expensive in the archdiocese.
Alumni and students didn't fully comprehend the crisis. The threat of closure, Olson notes, clarified that "they are who they are because of these schools. They can't abide to see that go away."
Havertown lawyer Joe Mattson, Bonner '71, e-mailed class reps dating to 1957 to rally 20,000 alums. Barbara Jara, Prendie '73, reached out to 18,000 more on her side.
Lindsay Wolf, a 1998 Prendie grad who works as an auditor, offered to crunch numbers to assist with the appeal. Kimberly Kelly, a calming spirit in the development office, opened an account at a nearby Beneficial Bank that only the alumni association could touch.
