On a gray, icy February afternoon sometime in the late 1990s, Tim and Therese Miller thought they were heading out for a cup of coffee. Instead, they found themselves walking the streets of a Denver neighborhood with a Jesuit priest named Fr. Tom Prag. They were bundled against the cold as Fr. Tom told them about conversations he had been having with families in the neighborhood and what those families wanted most for their children. They wanted a school.

At the time, Escuela de Guadalupe didn’t exist. Fr. Tom hadn’t even identified a building for this dream. But his passion captured the Millers instantly. Little did they know, that wintery walk had set the stage for nearly 30 years of service to a school that now educates hundreds of children every year.

A St. Louis Connection

Tim and Therese’s introduction to Fr. Tom came through a family friend, a priest in St. Louis who had married them and knew Fr. Tom well. But the connection ran even deeper. Fr. Tom was from St. Louis too, and like Tim, he had attended St. Louis University High School, a Jesuit school. That shared background gave the Millers a sense of trust before they had even met him in person.

When they finally met Fr. Tom, Therese expected a short, casual conversation. “We thought we were going to get a coffee and say, ‘Hey, we have a little bit of extra money we would like to donate.’” 

Fr. Tom had bigger plans.

He walked them into the neighborhood in north Denver, past small bungalows and duplexes and the tiny house where three Jesuit priests were living together. The sidewalks were icy and the wind was sharp. 

“Walking that neighborhood was powerful,” Therese recalls. “It kind of set the tone for everything after.”

Fr. Tom, along with Sister Susan Swain of the Sisters of Loretto, is remembered today as one of the founders of Escuela de Guadalupe. Fr. Tom told the Millers that when he asked families what would help them most, again and again the answer was the same: a school. Not a food market. Not a recreation center. A school. 

“I remember thinking, holy mackerel, this is it,” Therese says. “We were just locked in immediately.”

She adds, “Both of us grew up in middle-class families, and our parents sacrificed a lot to make sure we went to good schools. We have always felt like a good education is one of the best things you can give a child.” 

Tim also had an aunt who was Mexican, and during his freshman year of college in San Antonio, he lived across the street from his aunt and uncle, who became something like a second family to him. Between that relationship, the Spanish he had studied in high school, and the Jesuit connection, the idea of Escuela de Guadalupe felt less like a good cause to support and more like something built for people who cared about the same things that Tim and Therese did.

Stepping Back, Never Stepping Away

Escuela de Guadalupe opened its doors in 1999, and the Millers had already been involved for a year or two by then. Tim joined the board and served through some of the school’s most difficult years.

After serving two three-year terms, the maximum allowed in the organization’s bylaws, Tim left the board and accepted a job that required significant travel. However, the Millers kept giving financially.

A few years later, when Tim’s commuting ended during the pandemic, he reconnected with school leadership, joined the Finance Committee and then eventually rejoined the full board. He still serves today. One of the more meaningful parts of his return has been serving alongside Jennifer Godoy, an Escuela alumna who is now on the board herself, a powerful sign of how far the school has come.

It has remained, Tim says, a genuinely hardworking board rather than a group of figureheads. “Everybody is on the same page, trying to do what’s absolutely best for the success of the school,” he says.

A Family Affair

While Tim served on the board and traveled often for his career in the investment industry, Therese was home with the couple’s three sons, Tim, Mark, and Paul, ferrying them between three different schools and their many activities. 

“We had a kid at each school: Regis Jesuit High School, St. Mary’s of Littleton, and St. Mary’s Academy,” Therese remembers. “I was serving lunch and carpooling a whole lot.”

Throughout the decades, the Millers’ sons noticed how their parents kept showing up for Escuela. Even now, they talk about the example their parents set simply by making time for something they believed in. In fact, their son Paul carried that spirit further, spending several years as a volunteer basketball coach at Escuela before his own growing family pulled his time elsewhere.

Retirement, Grandkids, and “Grandma and God”

Tim retired this past June after decades in the investment industry, and says the adjustment has been easier than expected, largely because he is spending so much time with their grandchildren. 

Therese is right there with him. One grandson recently asked her to be his First Communion sponsor, so the two of them now spend Wednesday afternoons together in what she calls, “Grandma and God,” usually over chocolate milk and cookies. 

“God is sweet like a chocolate chip cookie,” she tells her grandson (and cracking herself up). “You want to keep Him in your life!”

Looking back on nearly 30 years connected to a school that did not exist when they first met Fr. Tom on that cold February walk, the Millers describe their time with Escuela de Guadalupe as an extension of the family and the life they built together.

Therese sums it up with her characteristic joy: “God, family, school… It all adds up to a full life, doesn’t it?!”