LATROBE, PA – Saint Vincent College alumnus James 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, his son, Robert, and his sister, Nancy Summers, C’87, founded the MetroSquared Foundation Inc. 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 has a scholarship in memory of his late wife through the National Student Nurses Association that for the past 12 years 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 pay it forward by starting a foundation is important to us.”
The families’ multi-year pledge for the stand-alone endowment was paid off in March, although additional donations to the fund will be accepted to grow the schoarship.
“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
