Bloomfield Hills — The benefits of attending a Catholic school don’t end when a student graduates, says Dan McGrath. They’re just beginning.

“It’s a privilege when you’re here, but once you graduate, tapping into the Brother Rice network is as strong as ever,” said McGrath, who graduated in 1996 and now helps run the Bloomfield Hills school’s alumni association.

That network of former Warriors is now 9,500 strong, McGrath said, and helping keep that group connected with one another and with current students is the primary function of the school’s alumni association.

“We tell our seniors when they graduate that the minute they get their diploma they’re a member of the alumni association. Now, when we have our monthly meetings and stuff, there’s no way you’re going to have 9,500 alumni at those meetings. I’d say our core group of guys is six to 10 alumni that meet once a month” to plan fundraisers, gatherings and other events, he said.

The alumni association at Brother Rice holds two major fundraisers each year — a boxing night in late January and a golf outing in the summer — and a few smaller ones to help defer the cost of tuition for struggling families looking to send their children to Brother Rice.

“As you know, there’s rising tuition costs at private high schools, so the more money the alumni association can raise to help out families in need, they’re going to do that,” McGrath said.

But the biggest help to current students the alumni association can provide is simply the value of networking. With 9,500 potential job contacts, McGrath said, the alumni association can begin to look pretty valuable after a student graduates.

“That’s one of the major benefits of attending a private high school,” he said. “We’ve got lawyers, engineers, doctors. These kids that are graduating college, they’ll contact me and I can get them in contact with other alumni. Say I’ve got 20 engineers (as alumni), I can send this kid’s resume out to 20 engineers, and the kid might get 10 interviews in two weeks. So we’re very proud of our brotherhood and the network, and we’re always looking to help each other out.”

And the Brother Rice network doesn’t end in the Metro Detroit area. The Bloomfield Hills school has opened up a Chicago chapter of its alumni association as well, and is considering chapters in places like Boston, Denver, New York and Los Angeles.

“That’s where our biggest alumni base outside the Detroit area is, in Chicago. We have known addresses of a little more than 400 alumni there,” he said, adding that the Detroit and Chicago chapters often organize outings when the Tigers or Red Wings play in the Windy City. “A lot of guys who go to Michigan State, Michigan, tend to move out to that area, especially in the last six years when there wasn’t a lot of work around here.”

McGrath said the local chapter also tries to help out current students in other ways, such as mentoring, tutoring or helping at school functions or sporting events. Though the participation isn’t as great as McGrath would like, it’s a work in progress, he said.

“We’re always trying to think of ways to give back and get our alumni involved, especially with the school and with the current students. That’s sort of a project that’s in the works, it’s something we can improve upon,” he said.

McGrath said for as strong as Brother Rice’s alumni association is, other Catholic schools in the area have been organizing their former students for much longer.

He said he’s often borrowed ideas from schools such as University of Detroit Jesuit and Detroit Catholic Central.

“Just keeping in contact with these other schools, you can kind of feed off each other. A school like CC or U of D has been around a lot longer, so they’re going to have the support from some of the older alumni — pretty impressive groups, both of those,” he said.

“We’re a younger school. We were established in 1960, so our oldest alumni right now are in their mid-60s,” McGrath added. “We’re not as old as a school like (University of Detroit Jesuit) and (Catholic Central), so we’re always looking to invest in our endowment so we can afford to stay on top and compete with schools like that.”