One nonprofit organization that stands out is Soaring Samaritans Youth Movement. Taylor Jackson, a Chaminade eighth-grader, has owned this organization for four years. Taylor is a passionate soccer player who shares her love of soccer with other children around the world. With the help of her sister, Jordyn, they work as a team to hand deliver soccer balls to children in foster homes, underfunded soccer centers and schools, as well as government-run homes around the world. To fund the cost of delivering soccer balls and their transportation, Taylor and Jordyn created and own a jewelry line called Soar Jewels. Taylor brought her creative talent to our middle school and turned it into a lunchtime club which met once a month to bead bracelets. Her club was a huge success — all the beaded bracelets sold out at the Justice Fair. Taylor’s organization is an exemplary illustration of delivering good news to underprivileged institutions. In fact, the entire Justice Fair is good news. Our students worked hard to deliver good news to other students, educators, and parents with the items that they sold for their charities, and within three lunchtime periods, all 25 groups raised a total amount of $12,897! The Justice
Fair culminated in a celebration of Mass honoring the work of our students and their nonprofit organizations as a sign of good news. There is another person who has made an impact in delivering good news — Natalie Rowland ’17. She attends the College of Mary and William in Virginia. Natalie was a Marianist LIFE Team member rooted in faith, service and love for others. She built relationships with other students, basing her philosophy on the idea that loving your neighbor is a form of good news. She embodied good news by baking a birthday cake for every single student in her senior class — all 320 of them! Her strategy was simple. She asked each of her peers whether they preferred chocolate or vanilla and asked their favorite color. Finally, she asked them to tell her a story. She then spent evenings at home baking cakes and decorated them by incorporating the stories shared by her peers. This was a selfless act of service for others that showed how much Natalie cared for her classmates. Natalie gave a TEDx Talk, “320 Cakes: The Existential Escapade,” during her freshman year of college to describe her mission of baking 320 cakes for
her senior class. It was an extraordinary way to deliver good news about her passion for baking cakes with a purpose to a room full of college students and professors. She included pictures and personal testimonies from her peers who were impacted by one of her birthday cakes. At the end of her talk, she was asked if people thought she transformed lives. Her response to that question was, “No, because nothing is ever transformed, only transforming.” Natalie was transforming as she listened to personal stories, responded in action, and built relationships based on pure love for her peers as a sign of good news. There are many other ways Chaminade brings good news to communities who yearn for the tenderness of a loving God. Chaminade is a place where students learn the skills of servant leadership as Taylor, Natalie and the students from the Justice Fair demonstrated through their works. This resonates with theologian Delio’s affirmation that Christ is the masterpiece of love, and creation and humanity is the outward expression of the word of God in love. Chaminade students personify the word of God in love through their creative work and service to the most vulnerable, transforming lives with good news.
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