Channeling inner grit and grace
October 1, 2020
As members of the Class of 2021 and the Editorial Board of the King Street Chronicle, we are honored and excited to welcome you to a new year. Although this year looks different, we arrive at school each day with a positive attitude, donning our red polos and “Class of 2021” masks with pride. This year, we are especially grateful to the faculty and staff members who have made it possible for every girl to return to school every day.
Through our positions as leaders of the Upper School and role models for the rest of the school, we hope to instill the importance of Goal Three of Sacred Heart’s Goals and Criteria, “a social awareness which impels to action,” in our community. In the newsroom, we hope to foster intellectual curiosity in our staff writers and editors and to exemplify dedication, optimism, and perseverance.
At the beginning of the school year, senior Morgan Wilkens, Student Body President, announced this year’s theme, Grit and Grace. This theme encompasses the values that we, as a Sacred Heart community, are striving to embody every day this year as we navigate this abnormal and trying time.
“We must channel our inner grit not only to persevere through the challenges and transformations that our society and community face, but also to use our voices to spark positive change,” Morgan said. “Grace will allow us to have patience, to use acts of compassion to send powerful messages, and to prioritize the common good over our personal comfort.”
As a school community, we realize our privilege in being able to attend school each and every day this year and to have a supportive community of peers, faculty, and staff that will be with us every step of the way. We are beyond fortunate to be listened to and to be encouraged to grow as individuals and as a community. As a senior class and student leaders, we hope to facilitate this building of community through our leadership roles inside and outside of the classroom. Morgan encourages us to take these leadership skills further by implementing them into our daily lives so that we can strive to ultimately make a positive impact on our society.
“We are living in a time in which our society, its policies, and its practices are malleable,” Morgan said. “As young women at Sacred Heart, we must use the incredible social and academic education that we are blessed with not just to participate in this changing society, but to lead and shape it. We have the ability to construct foundations of love and understanding, and the first seeds of change can be planted in our Sacred Heart community.”
Another of Morgan’s goals for the Sacred Heart community this year is for us to recognize our faults as a community and to use this as a motivation to care for and listen to one another, leading us to improve and prosper.
“We are living through a period of time that will be recorded in history books as nothing short of revolutionary; we must act accordingly,” Morgan said. “Although our Sacred Heart family is full of love and sisterhood, we must have the courage to recognize that our community is not perfect, and that not every member is living the same experience. This year will be one of listening, understanding, and collaboration as we strive to truly ‘build community as a Christian value,’ as stated in Goal Four.”
We are honored and humbled to be able to lead the King Street Chronicle this school year and to instill our passion for journalism into the younger members of our team so that this award-winning digital newspaper can continue to thrive for many years after we graduate. Our impressive platform will allow us to spread news about our community through our thoughtful reporting and to write about issues about which we are passionate.
We are thrilled to welcome you back to this new school year after six months off of campus and to the Class of 2021’s final year with the King Street Chronicle.
Featured Image Courtesy of Ms. Haley Sonneland