April 28, 2026
Dear Georgetown Prep Community,
There are people who work at a school and then there are people who become the soul of it. Terry Gormley is the latter. For thirty years, Terry has served as a development officer at Georgetown Prep not as a title, but as a calling. As a mother of five boys, four of whom attended Prep, and now a proud grandmother of Prep student Patton, she doesn’t just understand what this community means to a family. She lives it. And every day, she gives everything she has to make it stronger for the families who come through each year.
If your son attended Prep, there is a good chance Terry touched your family's life: a phone call that came at the right moment, a conversation that made you feel seen, a connection you didn't even know you needed. She has a rare gift for finding the thread that binds people to this place and to each other, and she has pulled on it quietly, persistently, and generously for three decades.
A trailblazer in the Prep Development Office, Terry helps raise the resources that make the Jesuit mission possible: scholarships, faculty development, and programs that shape young men into who they are today. Her work is never just about dollars raised. It is about lives touched, a community strengthened, and Georgetown Prep made more whole.
This year, at Georgetown Prep's Annual Gala on Saturday, May 2, we will honor Terry with a Raise the Paddle and we hope you will join us. Proceeds will establish an endowed, needs-based scholarship fund in her name, ensuring that Terry's legacy of opening doors for young men lives on for generations. We can think of no better way for this community to give back to the woman who has spent thirty years giving to all of us.
Whether you join us in person or celebrate from afar, we would be honored to have you be part of this tribute. To RSVP for the Gala, make a gift in Terry's honor, or both, please visit www.gprep.org/gala. You are also welcome to reach out to us directly at giving@gprep.org.
Thank you for being part of the Prep family and for helping us celebrate one of the people who makes Prep what it is.
Sincerely in Christ.
Rev. James R. Van Dyke, S.J.
President
View more photos from Gala 2026