Alverno High School Students Take New York by Storm

A select group of Alverno High School students spent a whirlwind three days in New York City last week participating in high-profile International Day of the Girl events which advocated for girls’ rights everywhere.

Arriving late in the day on Tuesday, Oct. 9, the 11 girls rested up for the night and spent the next day at the Paley Center for Media, where Kayce Jennings (widow of ABC’s Peter Jennings) hosted a conference for the documentary 10×10, a campaign to build worldwide support for girls’ education. The students served as ambassadors, guiding people to their seats and sharing their own experiences in girls’ education. The event was MC’ed by Christiane Amanpour.

The following day, Thursday, October 11, two students along with Alverno High School Director of Admissions and Public Relations, Sara A. McCarthy, visited New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to receive a Proclamation declaring October 11 as International Day of the Girl in New York.

The students also worked with ABC Family “Make It or Break It” star Josie Loren’s foundation Be The Kind, where the girls wrote notes of kindness to people and passed them out to people on the street to brighten their days and to encourage them to be kind to others as well.

The afternoon of the same day, the girls participated in a closing bell ringing ceremony at NASDAQ in cooperation with 10×10 and Intel Corporation, where the students along with Intel Global, Girls’ and Women’s Empowerment Campaign Manager Holly Bourne, Vulcan Productions Director Rosalind Hudnell, and 10×10 Deputy Director Tara Abrahams rang the closing bell for the Stock Market to celebrate International Day of the Girl.

On Friday, the Alverno students mingled and spoke with other individuals who were involved with girls’ and women’s rights in New York, sharing experiences and learning from each other. The students also got to see “Live With Kelly and Michael.”

“I think the thing for our girls that we’re always trying to teach them is that they have really the tools necessary to change the world and our mission is to empower them to be who they want to be,” said McCarthy. “And when they go to things like this and they have these opportunities and they meet other women who are making a difference, they see that although it can be discouraging, and it can be a challenge, that they really are getting the tools they need and have the opportunities to make those changes later on in life and even now as students.”

The eleven students that went on the trip were selected for being active members of Alverno’s unique student government program. The same group had also participated in an earlier conference in Mount St. Mary’s College in Los Angeles on the Report on the Status of Women and Girls in California, where one of the speakers – artist/advocate Azure Antoinette was endeared by the Alverno mission of empowering each young woman to be who they want to be, and offered to bring the students to New York for the International Day of the Girl event.

The girls chosen to attend the event were Elisa D’Egidio (St. Lucy’s Priory), Lindsay Fisher, Katriel Gonzales, Katherine Haysbert, Devny Osuna, Alexandra Overstreet, Alessia Paciulli, Maia Samerjan, Lauren Tunzi, Ileana Vior, and Cleo Wong.

Established in 1960, Alverno High School is a Catholic, private, college preparatory school for young women dedicated to preparing them to function in a society as informed, knowledgeable persons, who have the requisite skills to make and implement mature decisions about complex problems.

For more about Alverno High School, call (626)-355-3463 or visit http://myalverno.org/