Msgr. George Carton would be pleased. The vocations director of the Diocese of Peoria and its seminarians certainly are.

An Aug. 6 dinner to explain and seek funds for a new college seminarian scholarship fund named for the late Msgr. Carton — longtime diocesan chancellor who founded a Seminarian Endowment Fund decades ago — raised nearly $30,000.

“I’m overwhelmed,” said Father Brian Brownsey, diocesan vocations director. “Our goal was $10,000.”

About 100 people — including 36 of the diocese’s 37 seminarians — attended the inaugural dinner coordinated by the Diocesan Vocation Team at the Spalding Pastoral Center in Peoria.

They heard Father Brownsey explain why college men studying for the diocesan priesthood now have to come up with their own tuition and room and board. In recent decades, like major seminarians in later pre-theology and theology studies, college seminarians’ costs were covered by the endowment fund, now named for St. Therese, the patron of vocations in our diocese.

Rising college costs and increased numbers of seminarians led the diocese to limit funding to major seminarians, said Father Brownsey.

They also heard an emotional plea for help from Andru O’Brien, a member of St. Patrick of Merna Parish in Bloomington who will be a freshman at Immaculate Heart of Mary Seminary in Winona, Minn., this fall.

O’Brien described how, after he was turned down for loans, even with his parents cosigning, had had to make “the hardest phone call of my life” — to tell Father Brownsey he could not attend seminary this fall.

Father Brownsey told O’Brien he would find a way to make it work, but O’Brien still has “no idea if I will be able to finish the year.”

Father James Kruse, pastor of St. Monica’s Parish in East Peoria, spoke after O’Brien and told the crowd, “I don’t think anything else needs to be said.”

“Today college seminary costs three to four times what it did when I was there,” said Father Kruse. “We’re pressed to find creative ways to meet the needs.”

He challenged the dinner attendees to “dig a little deeper” to support the need-based scholarships.

“The seminarians we help today are the priests who serve us tomorrow,” said Father Kruse.

For more information on the Msgr. George A. Carton College Seminarian Fund, call the diocesan vocation office at (309) 671-1550.