Returning to her alma mater Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School, Sister Mary Bader – the CEO of St. Ann's Center for Children, Youth and Families – spoke at the graduation ceremony for the class of 2022 there, encouraging the students to show others simple daily acts of kindness in a nation and world that needs that virtue.
Speakers at the June 7 graduation at Visitation’s campus in Washington, D.C., discussed how the pandemic affected the high school experience of the 130 graduates, as well as what students can look forward to in the days ahead.
Sister Mary, a 1978 Georgetown Visitation graduate and Daughter of Charity, leads St. Ann's Center for Children, Youth and Families in Hyattsville, Maryland, which provides assistance to pregnant and parenting young women and their children, as well as daycare services for working families.
Sister Mary attributed her speech's topic of kindness to "two unlikely sources of inspiration," including a column written by Kathleen Parker in The Washington Post and a T-shirt worn by a stranger in an airport.
The column, which recounts the author’s positive experience with customer service renting a car at Hertz, “demonstrates the transformative power of kindness – that simple, yet powerful virtue,” Sister Mary said, adding that “the echo of seemingly insignificant routine gestures or words or encounters can completely change another’s day.”
Sister Mary said that column reminded her of a time when a teen named Brenda came back to visit St. Ann’s, where she had lived as a 10-year-old. “Now she was 13 and living in a foster home in Southern Maryland,” said Sister Mary, who said that when the girl was asked why she had returned to St. Ann’s, she responded, “‘Cause you all loved me,” and she recounted how Ms. Ola did her hair there each week, Ms. Edith the volunteer patiently helped her with her homework each night, and Mr. Forbes the bus driver always wanted her to tell him one good thing that happened to her in school that day.
“I don’t know where Brenda is today or how she is faring. I do know that she can say wholeheartedly that she knows and believes she was loved… (she experienced) powerful gestures of kindness, never forgotten,” Sister Mary said.”… Ultimately, I share Ms. Parker’s writing and Brenda’s story because all of us today, our loved ones, our friends and neighbors are crying out for kindness and civility, peace in our neighborhoods and world. Our nation – indeed the world begs for it.”
Sister Mary then tied that message to the students’ challenging years at the school during the pandemic. She asked, “Can you recount during those stressful and often isolating times when you bestowed a simple kindness on a classmate or perhaps you were the recipient of such an act?... Did that feeling of isolation leave you, even for a brief moment? What of your neighbors and family? Did a simple wave to an elderly housebound neighbor lift her day and diminish the loneliness?”
She told the graduates to reflect on their time at the school, saying that even their most difficult moments were met with a moment of happiness, creating positive memories.
Sister Mary then gave the students parting words on the “new world” ahead of them, filled with new people and experiences, saying, “perhaps one in which hundreds of complete strangers descend upon a college campus and attempt to navigate the experience of living and learning with people who may or may not look, act, speak, or worship like you.”
She added that “those awkward weeks and months of college life will be ripe with moments for a small but powerful kindness to be extended or received. This will be the time when the power of kindness can transform – can break down barriers, and bring you needed assurance of acceptance.”
Sister Mary said those acts of kindness in college can include “a simple smile. An offer to help a stranger. The sharing of a humorous story. A walk together to the library. And an invitation to another student eating alone to join your own crowded table… Indeed, kindness does beget kindness. It stokes respect, gentleness, inclusion, compassion, civility. It shepherds in peace, understanding, and hope.”
She encouraged Georgetown Visitation’s class of 2022 to “go forth and change one person’s moment, one person’s day, one person's life; allow others to change you…to transform you.”
Sister Mary ended her remarks by revealing that the inspirational T-shirt that moved her had the words, “In a world where you can be anything, be kind.”
The student speaker for Georgetown Visitation’s graduation ceremony was Joella Kiondo, the president of the senior class. Kiondo noted how, “When I was younger, my mom used to tell me that if I asked God for patience, He’d give me opportunities to practice. Too many times in my life, I have chosen not to ask for it, and He decided to teach me anyway.”
Kiondo then expressed the toll the pandemic took on her class, making each day feel like a Sisyphean task.
“We’d roll the stone up the hill every day just to have to do it all over again the next,” Kiondo said. However, she reflected on how this past year was the most in flux, as the school bounced between in-person and remote classes, masked and unmasked, until the very end when masks were not mandatory and classes were held in person.
“We were together,” Kiondo said. “And one thing that I felt very strongly from everyone this year was a sense that we were holding our breath.”
Kiondo invited participants to take a deep breath with her after an eventful year that included parties, birthday meals, a marshmallow roast, sports finals, and school plays.
“Our class, the class of 2022, has truly made the most out of every moment, despite the collective and the personal challenges we’ve faced,” she said.
Kiondo said her class also learned the importance of balance. “We have learned to slow down. When we were taking on too much work, we learned we can let some things go. We learned to trust ourselves, when to follow through with something that we are researching, or when to acknowledge that sometimes the best thing that we can do for ourselves is to pivot and start something new,” she said. “And with this sense of balance, we gained perspective… what to put down, and what to pick up. As we grow beyond Visi, our responsibilities will change, but I believe in our ability to handle it.”
Concluding her address, Kiondo said, “Thank you again to our families, teachers, and our friends for bearing with us despite it all. We made it through our final year, and we had a great time.”
Prior to graduation, Georgetown Visitation’s graduating seniors had their Baccalaureate Mass on June 6 at the school. The Mass was celebrated by Father Patrick Kifolo, an Oblate of St. Francis de Sales who served as the director of Visitation’s campus ministry and is moving on to another assignment.
