Rhodes alum gives nearly $1 million, $500 checks for CMSD seniors

A guaranteed $500 check can do what a keepsake never will: cover the first real costs of adulthood. For nearly 2,000 Cleveland Metropolitan School District seniors, that means help with housing deposits, textbooks, bus fares, car repairs or the work clothes that turn a diploma into a first job.

Mark Stepowoy, a 1978 graduate of James Ford Rhodes High School, gave CMSD $939,000 to fund the payments, which will go to every graduating senior in the district this year. The announcement came Friday during an end-of-year lunch at Windows on the River, one of the last times the James Ford Rhodes High School Class of 2026 was gathered before graduation next week. Stepowoy, now the CEO of Stepowoy Enterprises and the largest private owner of Roto-Rooter plumbing franchises in the United States, turned a graduation gesture into a districtwide cash gift with enough scale to matter immediately.

The donation lands at a moment when cash has become the graduation present families actually know how to use. A symbolic gift can sit on a shelf; $500 can move a student into a dorm, buy a month of groceries, replace a broken laptop or bridge the gap between school and a first paycheck. Dr. Warren Morgan, the district’s CEO, called the gift significant for a class in which many students had never received anything this large. In a district that serves more than 34,000 students and has been navigating layoffs and building consolidations, the money also carried a morale boost that reached beyond the seniors holding the checks.

Stepowoy has made Rhodes a recurring part of his giving. In 2023, he donated $25,000 for a new scoreboard at the school. Last year, he gave each Rhodes graduating senior $1,000. This spring’s $500 checks widen that habit of direct giving from one class to an entire district, making the point that the most valued graduation gift may be the one that arrives with no conditions attached.

CMSD had already posted its 2026 graduation schedule, but the surprise at Windows on the River changed the emotional math of the season. The district’s seniors are not just walking away with diplomas. They are leaving with a cash cushion that can ease the gap between school and whatever comes next.