On the Notre Dame High School campus, Joseph McQuarrie, the first recipient of the Most Rev. David M. O’Connell Service Scholarship, is regarded as an all around good guy.

Kind hearted, inspirational, respectful, caring, upbeat, generous and humorous are typical of the adjectives that turn up in comments from teachers and staff and, most importantly, his fellow students who voted him  Home Coming  King.

Step into an interview with McQuarrie and he reacts modestly to such kudos, describing himself as having solid, rather than spectacular grades and a wide span of interests ranging from history to religion to movies.

He’s pretty proud about the fact that he earned his stars as a movie fan by writing, laying out and doing the graphic design for an impressive, 103-page  book entitled “A Teen’s Take on Tinsel Town: The 25 Greatest Movies” by Joe McQuarrie.

“I started making lists about movies in fifth grade and my uncle said, ‘you should make a book.’ So I did.”

He drew up rules and regulations – it’s against the regulations  for instance, to be a “plot spoiler” by revealing the end of a movie – and criteria, selecting movies that reflect, as Walt Disney put it, the “ideals and objectives of normal childhood.”  When it was finished, his dad quickly found a bindery and had it bound.

To him, that kind of family support is at the heart of everything. In fact, when asked who his heroes are, he instantly named his parents, Joseph and Kathleen, as the “two big ones.”

One of four children, he brags up his siblings, older brother Jack, a Rutgers student, Michael, a sophomore at Notre Dame, and Kathleen, an eighth grader at Lawrence Middle School who will go on to Notre Dame.

He frankly calls the four-year, full-tuition scholarship an unbelievable boon. The best thing about it, he says, is that it’s a gift to his mother and father for all their determination to see him (and his siblings) well educated at a Catholic high school.

McQuarrie says he wanted very much to continue on at a Catholic college – The Catholic University of America was his first choice – but had worried about balancing the cost against his chosen profession of teaching.

“I went to public school before high school and I had a good experience,” said McQuarrie, who teaches religious education to first graders in the family’s home parish, St. Ann, Lawrenceville.

But at Notre Dame, he said, he was able to experience his faith on a much higher plane.

“When you get to Catholic high school and “When you get to Catholic high school and you can pray and go to Mass and have religious education and there are crucifixes in every room, it is so different and so wonderful.”

He first encountered CUA during a class trip to Washington, D.C. that sparked an ongoing desire to study there. “I wanted to go (to CUA) so much but I am going to be a teacher and I know that won’t be financially rewarding…I just thought this is where I want to go and I’ll be in debt for a long time.”

He hadn’t factored in how a near “lifetime” of social service would affect that equation.

A Special Gift for Service
During his 12-year tenure as president of CUA, Bishop O’Connell emphasized commitment to service, a reflection of his Episcopal motto – Ministrare non ministrari – meaning “to serve and not be served,” from the Gospel of Mark.

The scholarship that bears Bishop O’Connell’s name is open to all students from the Diocese of Trenton applying to CUA with the qualification that the recipient have a demonstrated record of service and a commitment to service while at CUA and beyond.

Of the scholarship, a humbled Bishop O’Connell said he was honored “that CUA has recognized my service in this way.”

Selected from a pool of more than 175 applicants, it’s clear from talking to Joe McQuarrie and his parents that he meets the service requirement and then some.

He’s been giving of himself since…well at least his First Holy Communion, say his parents Joseph and Kathleen McQuarrie.

 “When he was a youngster, he was always generous. He gave his Communion money to the Smile Train campaign to fix cleft palates and cleft lips. He wanted to give a smile to a child,” his dad said.

Young McQuarrie gave his Confirmation money to Heifer International, the non-profit organization whose goal is to help end world hunger, noted his mom.

“He bought a goat for a family that needed it,” his dad said. “Sometimes we would think, these are hundreds of dollars. Should we stop him? But we knew how much it meant to him and we encouraged him to follow his heart.”

His parents like to tell how their son would make up flyers and distribute them throughout the neighborhood notifying people he was collecting for the less fortunate.

At Notre Dame, he’s been involved in service activities throughout his four years. Most recently, he helped to coordinate a book drive for Schools for Schools, a part of the Invisible Children Organization, which aims to help child soldiers and prevent child abduction in Northern Uganda and rebuild schools there.

Notre Dame managed to raise $11,026.40, the most money in its 25-school cluster.

When the scholarship “fell out of mid-air” it was as though everything that matters to him in his life came together.

He would be able to continue to immerse himself in his faith, continue reaching out to those who are less fortunate at CUA, well known for its service opportunities and he would be able to strive toward his goal to make a career out of teaching.

“I want to teach because I’ve been one of the luckiest people in the world and I know it. My family, my education at Notre Dame, it’s all been wonderful. I  want to pay it forward…I want to give back.”