Title:Gracias Family Foundation gives $5M for immediate aid to students impacted by the war in Ukraine
Alumni leaders Antonio Gracias (SFS’92, MSFS’93) and Sabrina Kuhl Gracias (B’93) have made a $5 million gift through the Gracias Family Foundation to support the academic and personal financial needs of Georgetown students affected by the war in Ukraine.
“It’s critical to provide these young adults with stability, unwavering support, and hope for opportunities during this devastating crisis,” Sabrina Gracias says. “Aligning with Georgetown’s core value of service to others, we wanted Georgetown to be at the forefront of helping educate and offering tremendous support to both current and future students from Ukraine who are directly impacted by this crisis.”
In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Gracias family reached out to Joel Hellman, dean of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, to find out how they could help provide stability to students directly affected by the war.
“As graduates of the university, Sabrina and I both know that Georgetown is an Institution that cares deeply about the overall development and wellbeing of its students,” Antonio Gracias says. “We are very confident that Georgetown will provide an excellent education and a safe environment to heal the profound emotional trauma these students have suffered.”
“What I find most inspiring about these alumni is that they saw a crisis in the world, wanted to make a difference, and looked to Georgetown to make that difference,” Hellman says.
“We could not be more grateful to Antonio and Sabrina Gracias for their extraordinary generosity and for the support that this gift will provide our students whose lives and families are being profoundly impacted by the war in Ukraine,” President John J. DeGioia says. “This Fund will help to ensure that the transformative possibilities of education remain accessible to these students even as they face these difficult circumstances in their home country.”
Meeting urgent and long-term needs
The Gracias Family Sunflower Current Use Scholarship Fund aims to maximize support for students who reside in Ukraine or have been displaced by the crisis in their country and get it into their hands as quickly as possible. Focused on students who are current or recently displaced residents of Ukraine, it provides scholarships to undergraduate students in all schools who demonstrate financial need, as well as merit-based scholarships to graduate students enrolled in the School of Foreign Service. In addition to covering tuition and fees, the gift provides these students with emergency funds to cover course materials, travel, health insurance, room and board, living expenses, and visa expenses.
“In the short term, we hope the opportunity to be at Georgetown provides current and future students with a close-knit community of friends and mentors to help ease the effects of the crisis, dislocation, and trauma from their war-torn home,” Sabrina Gracias says. “We know that Georgetown will help them form a new sense of family and be a pillar of emotional support. The ability for them to continue their education will be profoundly meaningful—both personally and professionally.”
“As a Jesuit university in service to the global common good, we are committed to supporting our students from Ukraine and other war-torn environments,” says Thomas Banchoff, vice president for global engagement and director of the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. “Through the generosity of the Gracias family we will be able to redouble our critical efforts in this area.”
The donors intend for their investment to meet the needs of the moment but hope that their gift will inspire others to support students affected by the crisis for years to come.
“Ukraine faces a difficult period of national reconstruction in the years ahead,” Banchoff says. “Through scholarships for students from Ukraine enabled by the Gracias gift, Georgetown will be able to demonstrate our solidarity with Ukraine at a critical moment in history.”
‘Training generations of leaders to secure peace and prosperity’
This gift aligns with the founding mission of the SFS, which was created in direct response to the involvement of the United States in the First World War as the first American school of international affairs in the United States.
“We were forged in response to conflict 100 years ago,” says Hellman. “Our mission is to train generations of global leaders to secure peace and prosperity and heal from conflict.”
As a double graduate of the School of Foreign Service, Antonio Gracias says that Georgetown’s commitment to people for others shaped his worldview.
“SFS gave me the perspective that while history may seem like the current of a river, it is in fact the sum of the collective actions of individuals who chose to try to help,” he reflects. “No matter the size of the global problem, individual choices matter. It is our hope that the choice our family makes to help students from Ukraine will have long-term effects.”
Sabrina Kuhl Gracias, a graduate of the McDonough School of Business, shares this hope.
“With Georgetown’s rich history of educating the next generation of global leaders, these students from Ukraine may be personally inspired to become involved in the complex mechanics behind world events, leading them to improve our world in transformative ways,” she says.
Hellman says the gift from the Gracias Family Foundation will not only help those impacted by the conflict, but also benefit the entire Georgetown community.
“We will become a better university if our campus is a haven for people who have experienced life in crisis,” Hellman says. “They will help us think about ways to mitigate the impacts of that crisis.”
SFS community responds to the Russian invasion of Ukraine >
Hellman explains that supporting students whose lives have been impacted by the Russian invasion will inform the classroom experiences of all students preparing for foreign representation in commercial, financial, consular, and diplomatic arenas.
“If we are educating global leaders, the conversations we have in classrooms need to engage diverse perspectives,” Hellman says. “We need students who comprehend the devastating impacts of war. They have a better understanding of how to help communities and nations respond to the wounds that war generates for individual families and communities. They are even more motivated to think about innovative and creative solutions because they have seen the worst effects of that war.”
Hellman believes that appreciating the experiences of diverse peers can be immensely powerful for students who will shape the global affairs of tomorrow.
“I hope every student at Georgetown has a chance to get to know someone who has lived through conflict because it gives them some understanding of why we work to prevent conflict and how difficult it is to heal from it,” he says.
Those who wish to add their support may make a contribution to the Sunflower Fund >