St. Mary’s alum party Friday

Also this year, unlike in past years, the weather should cooperate.

Wendy Palmer, development director for St. Mary’s, a private Catholic school now marking its 155th year in The Dalles, said, “The kids still have a tie to St. Mary’s; the families still have a tie to St. Mary’s; we should be encouraging that.”

The gathering also serves to let people know about the school’s foundation and its fundraising efforts for the school. The foundation does two fundraisers a year, the annual appeal in the spring, and a year-end giving in December.

The foundation is hosting the party.

The event is a time for anyone with connections to the school to reunite, Palmer said. “It’s really about the people who have left. They all have a story to tell.”

Take Nicole Hernandez, a 2014 graduate of St. Mary’s, which goes through eighth grade, and a 2018 graduate of The Dalles High School. She said, “The second you leave St. Mary’s you realize how much effort they put into you. I wish I still had that.”

What she drew most from St. Mary’s was a sense of community--not only of feeling part of a tightknit group, but also of giving back to the community through monthly service projects.

She learned that being of service to others not only helped them, but benefited her too. “You gain something by helping others.”

When she got to high school, she wanted that same sense of community but on a bigger scale, and that’s why she joined ASB. “I realized high school wasn’t going to give me that same sense of community, unless I built it.”

That also led her to apply only to small, private colleges. She’s a sophomore at Linfield College, studying nursing. She also works with the community engagement office at Linfield. “All these things came from my beginnings at St. Mary’s.”

She said, “The person I am today is definitely because of St. Mary’s.”

As a high school senior, Hernandez was awarded the prestigious Ford Family Foundation Scholarship, which pays for 90 percent of her unmet tuition for all four years of college. The scholarship hadn’t been won by a student at TDHS for four years, and that previous student, Alleta Maier, was also a St. Mary’s alum, Hernandez said.

Eighth graders at St. Mary’s are put in charge of “family groups” made up of younger students. “That was my first leadership role, and I was in love with it,” Hernandez said. “I was in love with guiding these kids, even if they were only a year younger than me.”

She loved how students got so creative playing on a playground without much in the way of equipment. “We played the stupidest games that made no sense, but everyone played.”

That sense of community was due to the small class size, but also doing things together as an entire school. “There’s something special about that too,” she said of her St. Mary’s class of 13 students. “Knowing that this small group of people, that for the rest of your life, you’re going to know well.”

She loved the parent involvement, and having parents participate in classroom or school fundraising activities.

Jim Healy, a retired educator, recently joined the St. Mary’s Foundation board. He was a student at St. Mary’s in the 1960s. He said, “I have fond memories of my time as a student there. Attending there was a great gift, and one that I am better able to understand as I’ve grown older.”