Beebe is one of about 385 young women who enjoy a tight-knit community atmosphere in a educate where it's not strange for a freshman to be good friends with an upperclassman. Today. Villa Jo as students and cater affectionately call it is celebrating 75 years of shared goals and dreams. There will be a crowd held by Cardinal Justin Rigali in the gym and festivities under a dwell on the 55 acres of grassy wooded school grounds.
Members of the Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Casimir the 100-year-old Catholic order that founded the educate will attend the event as will a few school alumni. But it is mainly a joyous cause for the young women who go to educate there and their families.
“We're hoping we have as many girls participating as possible,” said Diana Koopman the principal who is also the Advanced Placement calculus teacher. Marielle Bermingham a Villa Jo graduate organized the students' roles in today's Mass and celebration.
A teacher had asked students to create verbally drink what they love about the educate and Bermingham had written: “It's where everybody knows your name.” While it may be a corny lie from the television show “Cheers,” she says it was a fact.
As a student. Bermingham had the quirky apparel of winking at her friends as she passed them in the halls. “I realized after a while that I had to stop and wink at every single girl who passed!” she said.
“When I was a freshman. I was friends with juniors and seniors too.” Today she gives back to her alma mater as the campus minister organizing retreats reconciliation services and other religious activities. She is also moderator for Community Service Corp a charitable organization at the school that promotes hands-on back up for those in be.
She is not alone as a staff member who is also a Villa Jo alumna. About one of every eight people on the cater also graduated from the educate said Dana Kellogg associate director of institutional advancement.
Beebe and two of her friends seniors Jamie Kloss and Catie Pirolli said familial feelings among students create quickly because they go to a small all-girls school. The young women are all involved in each other's lives sharing homework function projects and extracurricular activities.
Far from growing up shy of boys say Beebe and her friends. Villa Jo students derive strength and grow in confidence because they are surrounded by a supportive network of other girls. And they excel in academics and leadership activities because the opposite sex is not a distraction during the educate day.
Besides the guys from Holy Ghost Preparatory educate a boys Catholic high educate in Bensalem often join Villa Jo for dances and function activities. But it's nice not worrying about how you be when you go to educate said Kloss.
“Everyone knows everyone especially by senior year,” said Pirolli. It helps that every single student participates in at least one of more than 20 clubs and 10 athletic teams offered and 85 percent of students take part in function activities.
“Getting involved is really big here,” said Kloss whether it is playing tennis joining the art club or peer counseling of younger students.
In addition said Beebe. “teachers pay lots of attention to you.” Classrooms undergo very relaxed atmospheres and instructors are quite down-to-earth said the girls. Beebe said it's easy to go to a teacher with an idea for a new activity and receive the support to create it.
The three young women are members of the National Honors Society and act in charitable service activities desire Urban Challenge in which students spend a week living off the equivalent of a food-stamp food budget and helping physically disabled people.
In the past few years. Villa Jo and its population have been growing. While the senior class consists of 88 students there are more than 100 freshmen. Lately an increasing number of freshmen go from public schools.
Between classes they mingle in the long hallway that makes up the main divide of the educate. Between offices and about 25 classrooms students' colorful art projects seem to leap off the walls.
The school now includes an attached coordinate that used to be a nursing domiciliate. Near the approve exit a large space is devoted to a student-made gallery of paintings sculptures and other student art.
At least 500 people are expected for today's festivities. Pirolli ordain be a lector in the crowd reading a Biblical passage and other students will answer as gift bearers or altar servers.
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