Los Angeles advocate revisits his Chicago Heights roots with $100K Prairie State College scholarship

Chicago Tribune

17-02-2025

Allan DiCastro wants to make sure students at the Chicago Heights elementary school he attended can afford to eventually go to college, like he did, at nearby Prairie State College.
So DiCastro, who moved to Los Angeles in the 1980s, recently donated $100,000 to the PSC Foundation. The funds will go to students with 'demonstrated financial need' who attended Serena Hills Elementary School for at least one semester and go on to PSC. They have three years to finish a certificate there and the donation covers all their out-of-pocket expenses.
'It was important to me that they be seen,' DiCastro said. 'They have a long road ahead of them.'
DiCastro graduated from Prairie State in 1980 with an emergency medical technician certificate, according to information from the college. But his sister, Gail Ann DiCastro, who had planned to enroll there in 1979, was one of three graduates of Homewood-Flossmoor High School who was killed that year when American Airlines Flight 191 crashed that year, just after taking off from O'Hare Airport in one of the worst aviation disasters in the nation's history. The new GAP Scholarship, for Gail Ann Prize, is named in her honor.
Allan DiCastro later obtained a degree in finance from another university and began a career working in savings and loans and banks.
He said his mom by herself raised him and his four siblings, all who attended Serena Hills, so they had jobs early on.
'I mowed lawns, helped strip furniture, worked with maintenance at an apartment building and worked my college summers, primarily at Col. Chucks Auction Gallery of Monee,' he said.
His mom also attended Prairie State, studying nursing after having had to put off her education for years.
'It's like in the Wizard of Oz — Dorothy always had the power, and so do these kids … I want them to know that it can happen for them, too, but they have to go forward, and I am here to help them get started,' he said in a news release. 'Education has always been a solution.'
After moving to Los Angeles, DiCastro helped start and is the executive director of Art + Practice, a non-profit gallery/exhibition space that which helps young adults ages 18-24 transition from foster care.
The new scholarship isn't his first time helping at his former elementary school. He has also donated new winter coats to students at the Serena Hills, along with funds for a Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics lab.
Deb Havighorst, executive director of the PSC Foundation, said the Prairie State community is grateful for the scholarship donation. She is helping to identify Serena Hills graduates attending Bloom, Homewood-Flossmoor and Marian Catholic high schools, who may wish to attend PSC in the future.
'He's very involved in philanthropic ventures and he's just a really interesting and great guy,' said Havighorst, who had a chance to meet DiCastro via videoconference. 'He said he just wants these students to know that he believes in them.
'I tell you, that is the most powerful impact of a scholarship for our students,' she said.
The students she's contacted so far have been surprised and grateful.
'They cannot get over the fact that we have people who don't know them who donate money so they can be successful,' Havighorst said. 'It's wonderful to be able to share that with students and it's just as wonderful to be able to tell donors how strong their impact is.'
Tuition and books typically cost $6,000 for two semesters at Prairie State, though some programs such as Nursing, Dental Hygiene and Surgical Technician can cost a little more, Havighorst said.
Havighorst recalled a student in 2013 saying he had to skip the previous semester because he didn't have the $200 needed to attend.
'Nobody should have to miss going to college over $200,' she said.