The event featured the pep band and cheerleaders, a proclamation read by Middletown Mayor Elizabeth Slamka, the Akers family being presented Champion of Fenwick awards and ended with a rousing standing ovation from the students and staff.
Afterward, the Akers family — Bill and Debby Akers, Jim and Jody Akers and Drew Akers — watched as a plaque commemorating their contributions to the Catholic community was unveiled near the school’s entrance.
The school will be “forever grateful” for the family’s generosity, Jim Kleingers, a 1974 FHS graduate, said during the assembly.
About 25 years ago, realizing that Fenwick High School on Manchester Road in Middletown was too small for the growing student enrollment, school and community leaders began exploring expansion options.
What that group didn’t realize, the Archdiocese of Cincinnati was looking for available acreage in Warren County near Interstate 75 to build a new Fenwick High School.
That’s when Kleingers, founder and executive chairman of the Kleingers Group, ran into Jim Akers, whose family owns Akers Packaging. The family has been longtime Fenwick supporters and produced 12 Fenwick graduates.
Kleingers explained the group was looking for enough land to build Fenwick High School and the necessary athletic facilities. He said the perfect location would be on Ohio 122, less than one mile east of I-75 to make it easier to attract students outside the area.
That piece of property was owned by a group called Fifth Duet, Kleingers was told. Then Akers said the land was owned by his brother, Bill, and his family.
“The Lord was at work that day,” Kleingers said during the assembly.
The Akers family donated the land, valued at an estimated $1.8 million to $2 million, and that gesture changed the trajectory of the Catholic school, Kleingers said.
“Amazing generosity,” is how he described the donation.
A capital campaign initially raised about $6 million, what the Archdiocese of Cincinnati said was needed to begin construction. More funds were raised and when the goal of $12 million came up short, Father John Civille from Holy Family Parish announced the congregation and John XXIII would donate the rest of the money to complete the campaign over a number of years.
When news spread that the land for the new Fenwick High School had been donated, thus reducing how much was needed to be raised, it “galvanized the community,” Kleingers said.
Ground was broken in 2003 and the building opened for the 2004-05 school year, marking the third campus for Fenwick, following Old South and Manchester Road. Since then, the school has built a new football field/athletic complex, an outside classroom space called Falcons Landing and remodeled the cafeteria.
“The land that we stand on has given us a strong foundation to build on,” said Vanessa Mosley, director of development. “We will continue to build on this foundation. We will be good stewards of your gift.”
The regional school draws students from 30 ZIP codes, school officials said.
“We say Fenwick was built with purpose and that purpose is for our students to learn, to lead and to love,” Mosley said.
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