A ROAD LESS TAKEN
For too long, young men have been given too few options after high school: either commit to four years of college, join the military, or find work while you figure out your life all on your own. Harmel Academy offers a different path.
A BETTER WAY FORWARD
Harmel Academy is a Catholic, residential, trade school for men. At Harmel, a young man is trained in the skilled trades, schooled in a robust humanities curriculum, formed spiritually through a life of common prayer, and is prepared for excellence by living in an intentional community.
BECOME A SKILLED MAN
During our first year of Foundations teaching, a Harmel man builds confidence, thoughtfulness, and excellence for life, all while developing high-demand skills for his career. He is also discerning the career path to which he is being called. Additional years of community, prayer, work and study are available to the young man building an integrated life in the skilled trades.
more than a trade school
Any man who joins the Harmel community as a student must understand: this isn’t a typical trades-training program. Harmel is designed to form the whole man through a community of prayer, work, and study.
Community
Harmel men live in households — small groups of different years and trades who share meals, leisure and the daily work of holding one another to holiness.
Prayer
Ora et labora: men pray Lauds, Vespers and Compline together daily, learning from St. Joseph that prayer is not a break from work but the soul of it.
Work
Work is good in itself — a share in God's own making of the world — so a man's trade here forms him as surely as it pays him.
Study
Great books read in a monastic key rather than an academic one, where a welder reading Flannery O'Connor is not taking a break from welding.
“I’ve been able to see a lot more value in myself. I was almost able to watch myself blossom into a man. I’ve done things I would have never in a million years done before.”
— Daniel Parker
Machine Systems Apprentice, Class of 2022
GET STARTED
Ready to grow in skill and holiness? Ready to build a firm foundation for life? Apply now.