Sticker Mule funding enough scholarships to increase local school enrollment by 65%

AMSTERDAM – The CEO of Sticker Mule is offering a scholarship that could increase enrollment by 65% at St. Mary’s Institute.

Anthony Constantino announced that he will fund 100 scholarships a year – at an annual cost of $515,000 – to the school he attended as a child.

That school has only 160 students now, from age 3 through eighth grade.

It will be a transformational gift, said Principal Kayla Bills.

“We definitely have space for another hundred” students, she said. “We are extraordinarily grateful to Mr. Constantino for his tremendously generous gift.”

Constantino said the school initially approached him to fund some building improvements.

“I said, listen, kids is more exciting,” he said, but added that he’ll be paying for building projects, too.

He decided to fund the school partly to encourage other wealthy people to support private schools.

“We need alternatives,” he said. “There’s a lot of pressure on me to perform and I make stickers. We need the same pressure on schools.”

By funding excellent private schools, he said, wealthy people might create pressure for the nearby public schools to improve.

“Hopefully, other people will copy us. There’s a lot of people with extra money,” he said. “People think a college scholarship is very expensive. An elementary school scholarship isn’t as expensive. Less well-to-do people can think of doing it.”

He considered making a donation to his alma mater, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, but he decided that would not have as big an impact.

“These small private schools are more resource-constrained. Dollar-for-dollar you can do more. And there’s a lot more room for innovation,” he said. “And you can motivate other people. The country is not thinking about helping these private middle schools. It would just be a drop in the bucket if I gave to RPI.”

Constantino will also donate about half a million dollars to “construct several incredible additions to our school,” school officials said in a letter to the community.

Families that want to enroll should apply to the school by emailing to apply@smik8.org the student’s most recent report card and an essay on “Why SMI.” The scholarship for the general public will be for students in grade 4 through 8; for Sticker Mule employees’ children, applicants can be in grades K-8.

A scholarship committee at the school will determine who gets the scholarships. Constantino isn’t on the committee and said he fully supports the school making the decisions.

But he did make one request: 50 of the scholarships must go to families who have a Sticker Mule employee.

It’s not clear how many of his employees have children of the right age. It’s possible there’s only about 50 children who could be affected, he said.

“The great thing would be everyone in my company who wants it gets it,” he said. “In both regards we have no control – it’s up to the committee.”

Sticker Mule is privately owned, so its finances are not publicly available, but Constantino has made a name for himself in recent years for more than his business success. He grabbed headlines during the run-up to the 2024 election when he put up a massive, lighted Vote for Trump campaign sign that caused a kerfuffle. Then he considered a third-party run for New York’s 21st congressional district when it looked like U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik might become part of President Donald Trump’s administration.

Constantino said it would not be a hardship to fund the scholarship for many years.

“Sticker Mule is a much stronger company that people realize,” he said. “We have a great company in a small town. I want my employees to be happy and a big part of that is living in a community that is flourishing.”

His long-term goal, he said, is to help St. Mary’s Institute become one of the nation’s top private schools.

Bills, the school principal, said his gift is inspiring.

“His generosity is definitely an inspiring reminder of how faith, gratitude and education can truly transform lives,” she said.

Sticker Mule is an ecommerce print-on-demand company that produces stickers, labels, magnets, T-shirts and so on. It employs 1,200 people, with factories in Amsterdam, South Carolina and Italy.

This article originally published at Sticker Mule funding enough scholarships to increase local school enrollment by 65%.