Preston spreads Divine Compassion spirit
BY ALEX MITCHELL
Teaching the Catholic doctrine
of Divine Compassion to
the students of Preston High
School has transformed Bronx
girls into women who made the
world a better place over the
past 73 years.
That’s the mission of the
longstanding all-girls academy
in Throggs Neck, which aims
to bring students to their pinnacles
of success while also
showing the world in a much
more empathetic lens than the
average school.
“It is a community where
diversity is celebrated and students
are engaged by teachers
and guidance counselors
in learning skills that develop
each person’s capacity to listen
deeply, engage in critical thinking
and diffi cult or confl ictual
conversations, to resolve issues
together with win win solutions,”
said Sister Carol Wagner,
director of counseling services
for Preston.
While the school celebrates
the 150 years of the Sisters of the
Divine Compassion — the Catholic
congregation that started the
school back in 1947 — it is Preston’s
comparatively recent initiatives
which have left a compassionate
mark on many of the
girls who have walked through
their doors.
The epitome of that is Preston’s
Compassion Connection,
a student outreach program
which services “all sectors of
our Bronx community, reaching
out to all people in need.”
The program recently held
a food drive that distributed
over fi ve tons of non-perishable
items to parishes, families
and many more in need around
the borough.
“Students feel Preston is
their second home, where they
learn and grow in an atmosphere
of compassion, becoming
empowered as young women
to be leaders in their personal
and professional lives and in
their communities here in the
Bronx locally and globally,”
Wagner said.
In terms of academics,
Wagner told that the school’s
STEM programs are funded
by Women In Engineering, a
global leader devoted to advancing
the scientifi c interests
of women and students in
over 100 countries, adding that
arts and humanities programs
NYC, masks and
social distancing
are working!
Students in Preston High School’s Compassion Connection outreach program bag food to give to those in need.
Photos courtesy of Sister Carol Wagner
have also propelled alumni into
phenomenal careers.
Sister Wagner explained that
Preston graduates have taken
major roles as senior vice presidents
in the healthcare industry
and also in legal fi rms, many of
which “represent and empower
women, people of color and lowincome
residents in justice and
other legal issues.”
Other graduates have established
careers in counseling
and prevention programs
as well as becoming spiritual
and religious leaders in
Catholicism, she added.
“The Preston High School
graduate is open-minded, selfaware
and respectful of differences
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among people,” Wagner
said. “She appreciates the richness
to be found in different
cultures and is able to discern
common values among different
religious traditions. She sees in
nature the imprint of the Creator
of the Universe and dedicates
herself to respecting it and
helping others to do likewise.”
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