Our History

The legends about Holy Family Academy’s pioneering founders and “first families” echo the story of Gideon’s army in the Book of Judges. Gideon had assembled 22,000 soldiers to battle the Midianites, but through a series of trials God reduced Gideon’s army to 300 fighting men lest they “vaunt themselves” if victorious. The victory won, Gideon sees clearly that for God nothing is impossible.

In the late 1990s, a small band of families and their chaplain, Father Marc Montminy, charged into the battlefield of Catholic education. They wanted to found a junior high/high school built on three pillars: Catholic, Classical, Affordable. There were challenges. They had no experience running a school, and they had no faculty, no staff, no students, no curriculum, and no building.

Finding a building is one of the countless Gideonesque miracles in Holy Family Academy’s life. The city of Manchester was looking to unload the Chandler School Building on Ashland Street: a decrepit, dilapidated, dirty, and uninhabitable structure built in 1906. It was 93 years old, but did not look a day over 193.

The lowly building, alas, was just right for a poor family. It had room for a chapel, eight classrooms, boys’ and girls’ locker rooms, two offices, a schoolyard, and a parking lot. And the price was just right: one dollar. The founders and the first-generation families believed that with sweat and elbow grease they could make it shine. So, this rag-tag band of adventurers put thousands of volunteer hours into cleaning, scraping, scrubbing, patching, painting removing, and replacing until the building could be legally occupied. On September 5, 2000, 22 students in grades 7-9 entered Holy Family Academy, a school that was Catholic, classical, and affordable.

In 2004, the first four Holy Family Academy graduates received diplomas. For the next 10 years, the Academy grew, reached many milestones, and in 2014 was officially recognized by the Diocese of Manchester as a Catholic School.

By 2014, the Academy had outgrown the Chandler School Building on Ashland Street; 90 students sharing two closet-sized bathrooms. In 2016, we moved to the Hevey School Building campus of Ste. Marie Parish on the West Side of Manchester. The Hevey School was built in 1911, so this was an upgrade to a newer building!

With the proceeds from the sale of the Chandler Building, Holy Family Academy was able to pay off substantial debt and renovate the Hevey School Building. For starters, the building needed a $150,000 sprinkler system, electrical upgrades, lighting, a PA system, Wi-Fi, demolition and replacement of several walls, new doors, new tile floors in the hallways and bathrooms, a security system, and a fresh coat of paint for every inch of wall space!

Today, 222 students have graduated from Holy Family Academy, 110 are currently enrolled, and grades 7-11 have waiting lists for the 2025-2026 Academic Year.

For 25 years, the Catholic identity has always been the north star for Holy Family Academy. The Mission Statement articulates the Academy’s joyful and robust embracing of her Catholic Identity:

The mission Holy Family Academy is to be a school where students can encounter the living God and liturgy and prayer, classes and conversation, studies and sports, fellowship and friendship, and become the person God calls them to be.

Holy Family Academy has always worked and prayed to cultivate the five essential marks of Catholic Schools: inspired by a supernatural vision, founded on Christian anthropology, animated by community, imbued with a Catholic worldview throughout its curriculum, and sustained by Gospel witness (The Holy See’s Teaching on Catholic Schools).

The motto, Ad Veritatem per Fidem et Rationem/To the Truth Through Faith and Reason communicates the Academy’s commitment to classical, liberal education. For 25 years, the Academy has offered a Great Books-based core curriculum with class discussions conducted in the Socratic method.

To keep Holy Family Academy affordable, the tuition has always been set within the reach of families who have been priced out of Catholic Schools. While paying employees a highly competitive wage, full benefits, and a matching 401k retirement plan, the Academy has managed to keep tuition thousands of dollars below comparable schools and roughly $10,000 lower than the per-pupil cost to educate in local school districts. Moreover, the Board of Trustees has kept its promise that no students who are a good fit for the mission of the Academy will be rejected for lack of funds. Unquestionably, maintaining affordability has been made possible by the overwhelming generosity of benefactory, and we are eternally grateful.

As we end this brisk walk through the story of Holy Family Academy, my thoughts return to Gideon’s Army. I’m not sure if the HFA founders and first families had even the 300 troops Gideon had. But they did have his courage, conviction, and willingness to roll up their sleeves and get to action. Most of all, they had faith that the school would survive if God wanted it survive.

I am forever grateful to the founders and to God for they great gift that is Holy Family Academy.

- Mark Gillis, Head of School