The following keynote address was delivered by address was delivered by Brandon Vogt, founder and chairman of Chesterton Academy, at our 2025 Chesterton Gala on May 17, 2025.

Good evening, everyone—and welcome. It’s a joy to be with so many of you who care deeply about the mission of this school.

When we launched Chesterton Academy of Orlando in 2022, we dreamed of something rare: a school where academic excellence, deep faith, and authentic joy come together—not just to form students, but to form saints. Tonight, I want to share just how far that dream has come—and how the Holy Spirit continues to do more than we ever imagined.

Let me start with a moment that captures what Chesterton is all about. It was earlier this year, the first day we offered confessions at the school. The priest arrived, we opened the chapel—and something amazing happened: nearly half the students in the school chose to go to confession.

Think about that: in a world where millions of young people are walking away from the Church, our students are running toward Christ, to receive his mercy. That’s the kind of school this is.

This year has been full of moments like that—moments that leave us in awe of what God is doing. Thanks to many in this room, we were able to expand our chapel this year, from holding 60 people to 160, so now our entire student body, faculty, and visitors can worship together. The chapel is not just a meeting room—it’s a sacred place, a visible sign that Christ is the center of our school.

This year, we also added a sacristy and a confessional to the chapel. Confessions are now offered weekly—and students come. Grace is being poured out, and you can feel its impact on the culture—more peace, more joy, more love. And, thanks be to God, we’re now able to offer Mass multiple times a week this year—and the students are hungry for it.

God is blessing this faithfulness—and the fruits are real. We’ve almost tripled the number of students we started with just three years ago, and I could list so many other graces. But one especially stands out: I’m proud to share that this summer, we are sending our first Chesterton graduate to the seminary, to become a priest for the Diocese of Orlando.

That’s right—David Ewing, one of our seniors, has been accepted into the minor seminary and will begin formation for the priesthood this August. You’ll hear from David shortly, but I want to pause here to ask, what more beautiful fruit could there be from a Catholic school? What greater sign that a school is aligned with the mission of God than that it’s cultivating vocations?

But the blessings don’t stop there. Our students are flourishing across the board. The seniors took an unforgettable pilgrimage to Rome and Assisi during Holy Week. This year, we launched a new STEM Club, we hosted a school-wide poetry competition, and we expanded our athletic teams to include basketball, volleyball, cross country, cheer, and golf. We even continued teaching ballroom dancing and hosted an elegant dance!

The result of all this is students who are curious, joyful, and filled with wonder. And we’re not the only ones seeing this transformation. Across the country, families are rethinking education. A surge of parents are choosing classical schools for their children. Why is that? Because parents want more than college prep or job training, as good as those certainly are. They also want virtue, wisdom, and beauty. Classical education offers that. Yet Chesterton Academy offers even more.

Because we’re not only classical, we’re Catholic. Here, we don’t just teach Plato, Aristotle, and Shakespeare—we teach Augustine, Aquinas, and the saints. Every student takes four years of theology and four years of philosophy. They study the Bible cover to cover. They live the liturgical year. They sing in the choir and act on the stage. They encounter Christ. This makes them not only college-ready, but heaven-ready. 

This is not just a school where the Faith is taught. Here, the Faith is lived. Picture a school where the first bell of the day calls students not just to class—but to prayer. A school where teenagers wrestle with the big questions of life—truth, beauty, virtue—and actually enjoy the conversations. A school where students can quote Aquinas and use a microscope, sing the Salve Regina in four-part harmony and debate modern culture through a Catholic lens. Picture students who not only learn about God—but fall in love with Him.

Tonight, we ask your help to continue this mission. You may be surprised to learn that unlike Harvard or Yale or many prep schools, we do not yet have a billion-dollar endowment, unfortunately. Unlike public schools, we receive no direct funding from the government. And unlike parochial schools, we receive no funding from the Diocese of Orlando.

But what we do have . . . is a dream. A determined dream to give every Catholic family access to a joyful, rigorous, and fully Catholic education.

And we have something else: you. Generous men and women who believe in this mission. Who believe now, more than ever, the world needs saints, leaders, and truth-tellers. That’s why I’m asking you to stand with us tonight.