Working as a team, St. Mary’s College Student Council’s 14 members have shown their determination to hold events for fellow students and keep up morale for their schoolmates – either virtually or in class, while masked and socially distanced – throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
This week, they organized and hosted a ‘Share your Love’ theme week with daily activities for the whole student body.
“On Monday, we had ‘Share Your Love For Your School’ so we all wore school spirit wear, we did Candygrams on Tuesday, we did love song trivia, ‘Share Your Love For Comfort’ so everyone dressed down, ‘Love Bingo’ and on Friday we’re dressing in red, white and pink for Valentine’s Day,” said student council member Gracee Zagordo, speaking to SooToday.
“Throughout this year we’ve been trying to do as many activities as we can. So far we’ve done our Halloween Week with a haunted house which was COVID-conscious and still managed to get the student body involved. We also did a Spirit Week where we showed our spirit for the school and put together lots of fun events and tried to make it as normal a year as possible in regard to COVID regulations,” said student Kylie Esposito.
The APH-approved haunted house has been the favourite event for students so far in the current school year, the group said.
“The Grade 9s didn’t get the exact full experience but we did a lot for welcome week for them. The response has been pretty good for all the activities,” said student Kate Fasulo.
The students agreed it’s difficult to attend school and be around friends while being masked and socially distanced, but they’ve managed, as student council members, in Grades 11 and 12, to serve as role models and morale boosters for the rest of the school.
Graduating student council members are waiting for their college or university programs of choice to begin in September, either in-person or remotely, either out of town or at Algoma University.
In the meantime, Grade 12 student and H-SCDSB student trustee Lucas Marano said, “I’m just enjoying my Grade 12 year as much as possible in our COVID circumstances. It’s pretty exciting to be in the ‘Alpha’ grade at St. Mary’s.”
“(Still, however) it sucks,” Fasulo said of the effect COVID restrictions have had on school since March 2020.
“Usually we have activities for grads. We’re missing out, but each grad got to write their name on a hat and we hung them all up.”
“Even though it does suck, student council’s trying to make it their goal to do as much as possible so that this year is memorable, especially for the Grade 9s because it’s their first year. We want to welcome them, so that’s what we’re doing as best as possible. That’s what our group is for,” said student Ailee Iacoe.
Several students said their faith and positive attitude has gotten them through.
“I’m the faith convenor (for student council). Faith is very important to me and always has been and just being able to represent that at my school, which I’m proud of, is one of my proudest accomplishments,” Iacoe said.
“I think we create a welcoming environment as a team, being accessible and showing those emotions of ‘we’re going to get through this,’ have a good time and ignore the hard times of this pandemic, create events for all students, not just certain sections of our school. A lot of the things we do incorporate everybody, so that’s the exciting part of student council,” said student Tianna Legacy.
Student council activities at the school have been overseen by Heidi Zagordo and Daniela Veltri, St. Mary’s College teachers/Student Council moderators.
“Daniela and I have been doing student council for a substantial amount of time together and to say this year has been challenging is an understatement, but we’re really grateful to work with a group of motivated and positive young adults,” Zagordo said.
“The challenge this year was to start fresh and think outside the box and this group has really risen to the occasion.”
“They could’ve ‘tapped out’, but haven’t,” Zagordo said.
St. Mary’s College Student Council members include:
- Sam Rosso, Grade 12
- Kylie Esposito, Grade 12
- Ailee Iacoe, Grade 11
- Tianna Legacy, Grade 12
- Megan Bassanello, Grade 11
- Gracee Zagordo, Grade 11
- Adam Morgenstern, Grade 11
- Noah DeLorenzi, Grade 11
- Lucas Marano, Grade 12
- Carmen Fabiano, Grade 11
- Kate Fasulo, Grade 12
- Lindsay Pettenuzzo, Grade 12
- Miranda Taylor, Grade 12
- Amarrah Deluca, Grade 12
