LA Loyal Inspired:
Jackie McDonnell ’14
07/10/2026
Gratitude is at the heart of Jackie McDonnell’s commitment to Loyola Academy.
As a member of LA Loyal, Jackie is part of a community of Loyola Academy’s most steadfast and consistent donors whose recurring gifts to the Annual Fund help sustain the student experience for today’s Ramblers.
For Jackie, that support is a way to give thanks for the people, lessons and mission that continue to shape her life twelve years after graduation.
Jackie’s Loyola experience helped her form a worldview rooted in faith, reflection and service to others. The Jesuit mission she first encountered as a student guided her to a Jesuit university for her undergraduate studies and later to Loyola University Chicago for law school. Today, she is engaged to a fellow Loyola Academy alumnus, who also attended Loyola Chicago law school, and the couple will be married by Rev. Patrick McGrath, SJ, who served as President of Loyola Academy during their time as students.
“Loyola Academy taught me most a way of being that is slowed down, grateful and committed to serving others,” Jackie says. “My classes and teachers, especially in English and Theology, taught me how to live—how to pay attention, how to appreciate nature, how to value every person, and how to reflect on the important matters of vocation, identity, meaning and relationship with God and others.”
As an alumna, she also sees more clearly all that made that experience possible: teachers who gave generously of themselves, coaches who showed up in the rain and cold, parents who made sacrifices and donors who believed in Loyola’s Jesuit, Catholic mission.
That perspective has deepened her belief in the importance of alumni support.
For Jackie, being LA Loyal is both an act of thanksgiving and an investment in future Ramblers. Her recurring support helps ensure that today’s students can experience the same formation, community and mission that shaped her own life.
“I am most proud of Loyola’s mission, which calls us outside of ourselves to care about others and to use our gifts to best serve those in need. The Loyola message is so needed and often hard to come by in the world,” Jackie says. “The Loyola community is set on doing good for others for the greater glory of God, and for that I am very grateful and proud.”
Click here to learn more about LA Loyal.