LATROBE, PA – Saint Vincent College alumnus Jim Sagan, C’77, and his wife, Terri Tonsetic, had kicked around ideas about their retirement for a long while without making concrete plans. Finally, one day in January 2011, the couple set a timetable and a goal: retire in five years and start a charitable foundation.
“That was our last conversation about our future,” Sagan said. “Later that day, I rushed her to the hospital emergency room. Twenty-five days later, she passed away.”
Sagan followed through on his late wife’s aspirations. In 2016, Sagan and his sister, Nancy Summers, C’87, founded the MetroSquared Foundation. The private family charitable organization awards grants to children’s shelters, caregivers, veterans and persons who accrued significant debt due to medical care. The foundation also supports a program through the National Student Nurses Association that has awarded more than a dozen scholarships to nursing students in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Florida.
Recently, the Sagan and Summers families established the S-Squared Legacy Scholarship at Saint Vincent to support students in the College’s fast-growing nursing program. Summers’ husband Thomas, C’85, and their sons Bennett, C’14, and Austin, C’15, also are Saint Vincent alumni and part of the legacy.
“For us, it’s a matter of coming full circle, both to the community and the College,” Sagan said. “You see it right there in the title: legacy scholarship. That’s the key—this is our legacy. All of us, with our careers and everything, we’re all successful. Our Saint Vincent education gave us the foundation, so being able to give back by starting a foundation is important to us.”
The families’ multi-year pledge for the stand-alone endowment was paid off in January. Sagan now is seeking new investors to expand the endowment and provide maximum assistance to Saint Vincent students.
“We can grow this scholarship. We need to grow it,” Sagan said. “There’s a nationwide shortage of nurses and there are lots of students who have financial need. This gives people a start at the basic level. Where they go from there with their careers, that's their determination. We just want to help them out.”
MetroSquared Foundation board members (from left) James Sagan, Nancy Summers, Shari Mittaly and Robert Sagan
