Mercy schools are firmly rooted in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and in the legacy of the Sisters of Mercy and their founder, Catherine McAuley. Nowhere is this more clearly evident than in the students themselves. During Mercy Week, 2022, Mary Anne Campellone, theology teacher at Mercy Career & Technical High School (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), encouraged her students to reflect on what being a Mercy student means to them. You are invited to read and be inspired by these competent and compassionate young leaders!
Adam Yannatell: To be a Mercy student means to be a part of your community. It means to contribute to society in a positive way and to stand out from the bunch. Doing that will help make a better world and new hope for future generations. It also means making a difference in your life and other people’s lives. Doing that will give others hope and inspire them to make a difference in other people’s lives.
Julia Pronesti: To be a Mercy student means to be kind to everyone. You have to treat everyone with respect regardless of who they are. You should follow the Critical Concerns and help those around you who are less fortunate. I also feel like everyone should follow the Critical Concerns regardless of whether they go to Mercy or not, because to me they seem like the right thing to do. We should all care about the environment because we all live on Earth. We should all care about immigrants because we’re all fellow human beings trying to live a good life. We should all care about racism and nonviolence because we all live in the same society and they affect us all. Finally, we should all care about women because equal rights affect everyone. Overall being a Mercy student means caring.
Jamai Vann: To be a Mercy student means to go through life not only caring for yourself but also caring for those around you. To be a Mercy student means you acknowledge the challenges the world faces and try your best to raise awareness for them. As a Mercy student, you have to have compassion, leadership and grit. No one person can fix all of the problems of the world on their own, but we have to believe that if we work together a change can happen.
Za’morra Anderson: To be a Mercy student means to be able and willing to make a difference. You are willing to make a change no matter how big or small the waves are. To be a Mercy student means to be able to say no in the face of injustice and rise up against it. To be a Mercy student means to have mercy for those suffering. To be a Mercy student means to live by what’s right.