Retreats actually meant going forward for Jack Doolin of the class of 2021 at Gonzaga College High School in Washington, D.C., as those times of spiritual reflection deepened his faith, solidified his goals for life and spurred him to share that experience with fellow students.
“Gonzaga retreats completely changed and formed so much about my life, from my way of looking at leadership to my friendships inside and outside of Gonzaga. They changed the way I saw my friendship with God and the potential for what a community could mean to me,” he said in an email interview.
In his senior year, Doolin served as the chairman of the Gonzaga Freshman Retreat, leading a team of students and working with campus ministry to provide three day-long retreats for the class of 2024.
“He stepped up to this responsibility, even in the unknown of the pandemic, with grace, poise, enthusiasm, and a deep faith, inspiring the others on the team to pull together a momentous weekend for the freshmen,” said Danielle Flood, Gonzaga’s assistant director of campus ministry.
Doolin was on the Gonzaga retreat team during his junior and senior years and also helped lead the school’s sophomore retreats.
Reflecting on his service with the school’s retreat program, he said, “I hope that students walk away with a better understanding of just how loved they are, both by their family on Eye Street and their God. That is ultimately the mission – to help guys start to understand this incredible mystery and its implications on how we interact with each other. One of the most beautiful things is to watch the power of these retreats seep into campus in the weeks that follow as students grow in understanding and care for one another. Being on the back end taught me that the family we experience here is an experience of God.”
The Gonzaga senior also volunteered with Gonzaga’s Campus Kitchen for all four of his years at the school. Flood noted that in the past year, he helped lead Gonzaga’s “Care for Our Neighbors” campaign that provided COVID care packages for more than 200 neighborhood families.
Doolin said the Campus Kitchen outreach helped him gain new perspectives on serving those in need. “Getting to know our clients struggling with food insecurity challenged me to put a face to this issue of justice,” he said.
While packaging and delivering the meals, Doolin said he benefited from the mentoring and friendship of Patty Tobin, Gonzaga’s former librarian. “She is one of the most loving and dynamic people I have ever known and taught me so much about leadership and the living of the Gospel in real life,” he said.
Doolin said the Jesuit education at Gonzaga shaped his life there and will continue to impact his life after graduating from the school.
“The Jesuit ideal of ‘Finding God in All Things’ has shaped my faith life in fundamental ways that I hope will allow me to stay connected to God as I move forward,” he said. “The way I was cared for as a whole person has also presented me with countless role models for living a meaningful life in very different ways. I learned that God is interacting with us in real ways all throughout our day, and that we can live our life as a gift back to him in so many different ways.”
The son of Colleen and Joel Doolin, the Gonzaga senior attends Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Mount Vernon, Virginia. Doolin, a graduate of St. Mary’s School in Old Town Alexandria, has three siblings: Patrick Doolin, a 2014 Gonzaga graduate; Katherine Doolin, a graduate of Bishop Ireton High School in Alexandria and Catholic University; and Margaret Doolin, also a Bishop Ireton graduate who is now attending Catholic University.
At Gonzaga, Doolin ran on the cross country team and participated in the ACE club, Gonzaga’s gambling-free poker group. What he enjoyed most about those activities and the retreat program was the camaraderie among students from different grades and backgrounds and interests.
“I loved just getting to know new faces and learning from the very different personalities and strengths of my peers and older classmates,” he said. “As I got older, I learned to pay that forward, an equally fun and meaningful experience. This year, I was a captain of the cross country team, president of the National Honor Society, and chairman of the Freshman Retreat.”
Doolin’s favorite classes at Gonzaga included Helen Free’s Advanced Placement English class, where he said her engaging mentorship helped students progress as writers, and Mark Howell’s AP calculus class, where he said he was inspired by that teacher’s faith and his love for teaching.
The social isolation created by the COVID-19 pandemic and shutdown hit Doolin hard, he said. “In the first few months, I learned just how important community was to me in my everyday life in being forced to live without it.”
He found a special community in working with a group of seniors over Zoom to plan the school’s GonzagaFest, which include field day activities. It was especially meaningful for them to watch as three separate GonzagaFests helped “bring our community together and deliver so much joy to underclassmen and seniors,” he said.
After graduating from Gonzaga this spring, Doolin plans to attend Villanova University and major in economics, where he will also be a midshipman with the Navy ROTC.
His education at Gonzaga helped inspire him to attend a Catholic university and has fostered an ongoing dream he has for his life.
“For almost as long as I can remember, I have felt a calling to the priesthood,” Doolin said. “My time at Gonzaga, the people I met there, and the experiences of faith I have had through Ignatian spirituality are really drawing me toward the Jesuits.”
