Honoring the Past, Assisting the Future

Paul Stuka ’77 has established the Stephen and Rita Stuka Loyola Scholarship Fund with a gift of $125,000, out of gratitude to his parents for all they sacrificed for him to be educated, and in recognition of the emphasis they put on education. This endowed scholarship is aimed at reducing students’ dependence on loans and work-study programs. Stuka and his wife, Katherine, have also agreed to support the Holy Cross Fund Scholars Program with an annual gift of $10,000 for the next five years.

Stuka’s father Stephen was the eldest of ten children. He left high school after his freshman year to work to help support the family. “My father was born in Poland and came here when he was a year old,” Stuka says. “We were a blue collar, Worcester family.” Stephen Stuka worked in a factory in Worcester for almost 50 years. Paul’s mother Rita went to work in the kitchen at Worcester City Hospital when her only child was nine. “They worked very hard and sacrificed a lot to get me an education,” Stuka says. His parents sent him to St. John’s High School in Shrewsbury, Mass., and then to Holy Cross. He lived at home and commuted to school, majoring in Economics-Accounting. “My parents’ determination gave me the background to be where I am,” Stuka says.

Stuka, who runs his own Boston-based hedge fund called Osiris Partners, lives with his wife and two daughters: Elizabeth, 18, and Carolyn, 13, in Medfield, Mass.