Matching Collection Weekend
April 10-12, 2026
Our generous Lead Match Donors will match every dollar you donate up to $100,000!
Meet Gabe
Meet JZ
Be a Part of Their Story
Generous Lead Match Donors will match every dollar you donate April 10-12, 2026 up to $100,000!
Matching Collection Weekend provides essential funding to assist St. Mary’s mission of forming apostles for the Church and the world! Your gift will help meet the growing needs of our campus ministry as we work to expand our ministry, which directly impact the daily lives of our Aggie Catholic students.
It Didn’t Start With Him
He Started Looking
Gabe Klement ‘27 didn’t come to St. Mary’s with a clear sense of what it would be.
Growing up in Coppell, TX, he had seen glimpses of what a strong Catholic community could be. Through mentors like his dad Kurt, his brother Kolbe, and his friends, he had seen enough at an early age to know it was real. But it hadn’t been the center of his life. Most of his closest friendships growing up weren’t rooted in faith.
“I was very involved in the not Catholic bubble,” he says.
So coming into college, he knew he wanted something different. He wanted something real. Friendships that would challenge him.
He had heard about St. Mary’s through his brother Kolbe, but that was about it. When he showed up to his NSC, he saw someone talking about Connect outside the MSC and decided to check it out. He didn’t really know what a church community would look like in college. It just seemed like a good place to start.
That first step led to another. He got involved in John 15 his freshman year. He met more people and kept showing up.
Looking back, he can see there was already something in him that was searching for more.
He didn’t have it all figured out.
He just started looking.
Gabe (second from left) plays music in a backyard for an outreach event for Greek Life Students.
Gabe leads music in a fraternity house for Mass.
He Stayed
What began as a few small steps didn’t stay small.
After encountering Jesus his freshman year in John 15, Gabe kept coming back. Not because he had to, but because something about the community he found felt worth returning to.
The friendships began to take shape. They weren’t built around convenience. There was a depth to them he admits he hadn’t experienced before. He saw people who were serious about their Catholic faith, but still themselves. That drew him in.
Over time, he found his place within the St. Mary’s community.
It started simply. Joining a small group. Playing music at Mass. Then, gradually, more was asked of him.
He began playing music regularly at The Rock, a weekly praise and worship night on Tuesdays.
Around the same time, he got involved with Emmaus. A ministry focused on reaching students, especially those in Greek life, who might not otherwise find their way into the Church. It creates space for authentic Catholic community through simple invitations. A meal. A night of prayer. A conversation.
First by being part of it. Then helping lead it.
Now, as president, he helps create those same easy entry points for others in Greek life. Masses celebrated in fraternity houses. Nights of prayer and worship in college house backyards. Gatherings that feel familiar enough to walk into, but different enough to stay.
None of it was a single decision.
It came through staying.
What He’s Learning
With the Eucharistic Adoration chapel minutes away and daily Mass easy to step into, there is a kind of structure and rhythm to life at St. Mary’s that doesn’t feel forced.
When you are first learning something new, training wheels help. It’s easier to stay balanced when there’s a community holding you up.
Being surrounded by a community that seeks Christ above all things begins to change you. It forms you in a way that makes you aware that what you receive here is not meant to stay with you.
Gabe is learning something his dad has shown him over time, and something St. Mary’s has helped bring into focus.
Learning how to walk with people.
Not in a clean or predictable way. Not as a straight path.
“Our faith is not a straightforward path,” he says, trying to find the words. “To live on mission… you have to learn how to walk with someone through their questions… their doubts… and love them where they’re at.”
It’s not always about having the right answers, but about staying with people. That’s the part that’s starting to take shape for him now.
It Didn’t Start With Him
What Gabe is learning now didn’t begin with him.
Years earlier, his dad, Kurt Klement, was here. Class of ’92, though he admits it took a few more years to finish, and for most of that time St. Mary’s wasn’t part of his life.
He had grown up Catholic. His dad was a deacon. The faith was there, but mostly in a cultural way. When he got to Texas A&M, he lived a different kind of college life. Fraternity life. The typical college experience.
St. Mary’s was there.
He just wasn’t.
That began to change when he found himself asking questions and realizing, as he put it, “I didn’t know anything about my Catholic faith… despite being raised Catholic.”
It wasn’t one moment, but a slow return. And it started through an unexpected friendship with a priest, Fr. Dean Wilhelm.
They spent time together. Played tennis. Sat and talked. Things unfolded naturally over time. And through that, something opened.
Not through a program or a single moment, but through someone who walked with him.
What began in those later years of college was a springboard into his life after college, into the way he would live, and eventually into the way he would raise his family.
What Continues
When Kurt looks at St. Mary’s now, he sees the same move of God continuing.
Years ago, someone took the time to walk with Kurt. A priest who stayed, who listened, who let something real take root.
Now Gabe is here, learning to do the same.
St. Mary’s was there for Kurt.
St. Mary’s is here for Gabe.
And by God’s grace, it will be here for the next student too.
Every student who walks through these doors brings their own questions and hopes. This story shows what happens when those questions meet the living presence of Christ and a place ready to receive them.
Your generosity makes this possible.
You’re not only supporting a place. You’re helping form apostles for the Church and the world.
Thank you for making stories like this possible.
What did the 90’s–00’s look like at St. Mary’s?
There’s a trend going around on social media right now taking a nostalgic look back at life at the turn of the century.
We thought you might enjoy this one. Take a look.
I Always Had a Spot Here
He Came Because of St. Mary’s
Jonathan “JZ” Zabolio ‘28 didn’t come to St. Mary’s by accident. He grew up hearing about it. Stories about Aggie Awakening. Stories about his parents’ time here. Stories about something that mattered, even if he didn’t fully understand it yet.
When it came time to choose a college, Texas A&M was near the top of his list. Part of that came from growing up in an Aggie family, surrounded by shared experiences he had only heard about. There was a sense of wanting to step into something that had already shaped the people closest to him.
“I felt called to go to A&M because of the Catholic center,” he told us on a phone call with him and his mother, JoAnna Breen Zabolio ‘90.
He had heard about Awakening for years. His parents had gone. His sister had gone. They would talk about it, but never in a way that gave it away.
So when he arrived, there was a sense that he was stepping into something that had been handed on, even if he still had to experience it for himself.
JZ (left) with friends in the narthex of the New Church.
JZ speaks to the retreaters at Aggie Awakening.
What He Found
He had grown up around the sacraments. JoAnna and his Dad Jody made sure of that. So, when he got to St. Mary’s, he began to notice a certain rhythm. Daily Mass with friends. Time in the chapel between classes. Sunday Mass, followed by time together afterward.
Over time, he found his place within that rhythm. He began leading a small group in John 15, serving at the altar, and working behind the scenes as part of the maintenance crew. None of it felt separate. It was just part of being here.
The friendships he formed here felt different. They carried a depth he hadn’t experienced before. Because he got involved early, he saw people graduate, stay connected, and continue walking together in their faith. It gave him a sense that this wasn’t something that ends when college ends.
It was something that continued.
What Was Already Here
Years before JZ arrived, his mother JoAnna Breen Zabolio was here.
Class of 1990. Marketing major. She became involved at St. Mary’s during the second semester of her freshman year through the Newman Club and Awakening. She made Awakening 15 and went on to staff many more.
During that time, her friend Joanne was asked by their pastor, Fr. Leon Strieder, to help put together a retreat for eighth grade confirmation students at his parish in Sealy, Texas. Joanne invited JoAnna to be part of it.
They put together the first retreat. Then another.
At some point, it became clear that what they were doing needed a name. A friend of theirs, Pat Sullivan, suggested SMYRT, the St. Mary’s Youth Retreat Team. The name stuck.
What began as a simple invitation to help with one retreat became something that continues today.
Looking back, JoAnna points less to what they built and more to what happened in her.
JoAnna Breen and Vu Tran at Aggie Awakening.
Theme: “Partying in Different Countries”
Fr. Leon Strieder (on the right right) with students at Aggie Awakening.
“I always had a spot here.”
JZ had known about the brick for a long time.
His parents placed it when he was born. It was something they did for each of their children, a quiet way of staying connected to St. Mary’s. Over the years, they would come back for games, go to Mass, and walk through the courtyard. The bricks were always there.
He laughs about pointing it out to friends when they walk out of the chapel. But then he notices something more.
“I always had a spot here.”
Before he chose Texas A&M University.
Before daily Mass became part of his routine.
Before late nights on the maintenance crew setting up for the largest OCIA class St. Mary’s has ever seen.
The brick was already here.
And because of the generosity of so many Aggie Catholics who came before him, St. Mary’s was ready to receive him.
JoAnna said it simply, reflecting on what connects her story and her son’s.
Buildings expand. Technology changes. Programs evolve.
Jesus Christ at work in His Church remains the same.
Give Now to Double Your Impact
St. Mary’s continues to stand in the heart of Aggieland, forming students who will carry their faith into marriage, parenthood, parishes, workplaces, and someday bring their own children back.
St. Mary’s was there for JoAnna.
St. Mary’s is here for JZ.
And by God’s grace, it will be here for the next generation too.
Every student who walks through the doors of St. Mary’s brings their own questions and hopes. JZ’s story shows what happens when those questions meet the living presence of Christ and a place that walks with him.
Your generosity makes this possible.
You’re not only supporting a place. You’re helping form apostles for the Church and the world, students who will carry what they’ve received here wherever God sends them.
Thank you for making stories like JZ’s possible.
