On Campus

Mercy-A-Thon

Mercy-A-Thon is a treasured student fundraising tradition that takes place each year during Mercy week. Mercy students were more excited than ever to be together celebrating their school spirit while bowling at Pinstripes in their first off campus activity since returning to campus. Through our students supporting students campaign, our student body successfully met every goal we had and raised over $94,000!

The National Honor Society Induction Ceremony

This Fall, Mercy welcomed 15 students to Mercy High School’s chapter of the National Honor Society (NHS). NHS is built upon four pillars—scholarship, service, leadership, and character—which each inductee exemplifies through their personal choices and achievements in and outside of the classroom. Students were honored to have Mercy alum Congresswoman Jackie Speier ‘68 as their Keynote Speaker who spoke to the challenges she has faced and the importance to always face them head on while leaning on the support of others. Congratulations to this year’s National Honor Society Inductees!

INDUCTEES 2021

Marissa Abaya - Junior Sophia Avenido - Junior Katherine Callagy - Junior Niamh Dawes - Junior Danielle Donato - Junior Marrian Gomez - Junior Sophia Knapp - Junior Olivia Langridge - Junior Samantha Lynch - Junior Gurleen Samra - Junior Maxine Schaffner - Junior Sophia Villalobos - Junior Janice Wong - Senior Erin Colville - Senior Akiko Hokamura - Senior Congratulations to Mercy sophomore and The Winds of Truth author Lilly Mae ’24! Her first book will be available this December 2021. Lilly Mae is a fifteen-year-old author, who began writing The Winds of Truth when she was nine years old and finished it at twelve. After two years of editing and sharing her manuscript, she finally got her first publishing contract at fourteen. She has been accepted into two pre-collegiate writing classes at Stanford University and received top honors in both English and literature.

Robotics Team Prepares for the FTC Tech Challenge

Mercy Robotics is back in the classroom and gearing up for their FTC team competitions! After earning the Think Award 2nd Prize at their first tech challenge last year, they are looking forward to this year’s “in person” competition. Team interactions and preparation for competition were limited during last year’s Distance Learning, while all competitions were also virtual. This year the experience will be completely hands-on! The Robotics Team will engage in a game where they design, build, test, and program autonomous and driver-operated robots that perform a series of tasks for FIRST Robotics.

The Robotics class prepares students for college and real-world engineering experiences. Students go from having no expertise to actual hands-on experience in robot building. They would be delighted to hear from Mercy graduates working in the engineering world, and would be grateful for any advice they can offer to current students! If you would like to share your experience with the Robotics class, emails can be sent to Assistant Head of School For Academics Lauren Conklin (lconklin@ mercyhsb.com).

National French Week

The French Honor Society led students in hosting this year’s National French Week to celebrate the French language and Frenchspeaking cultures around the world. This year’s theme was “Inspired by the Louvre: Art from the Francophone World.” Students enjoyed a photo booth, learning fun facts about art in the Francophone world, playing Francophone flag scavenger hunt, and of course the scrumptious crepes!

Deaf Awareness Week

ASL students celebrated Deaf Awareness Month by sharing their knowledge of the deaf culture. Students taught one another how to introduce themselves in ASL and posted a variety of tips to bring further deaf awareness to our school including educating one another on the differences between hearing and Deaf people that most hearing people would not realize.

Hispanic Heritage Month

Mercy’s World Language Department, the National Spanish Honor Society, and the Latinas Unidas Club partnered together to host a series of events in honor of National Hispanic Heritage Month. Faculty and students collaborated together to further educate Mercy about Hispanic heritage, while enjoying authentic food, arts, and music. The celebrations culminated with a fundraising project for ALAS/Bay Area Border Relief Organization.

One of my favorite things as a student at Mercy were the rallies on the Green. Having the entire student body cheering and showing their Mercy Spirit was invigorating to me then, and I am so “ happy our students were able to continue this tradition this year after taking a year long break from gatherings for COVID. This Fall 2021, we have celebrated our

Welcome Rally, Mercy Day Rally, and our Breast Cancer Awareness Rally.

So far this year, our rainbow of class T-shirts has felt brighter and the class pride has felt louder at our rallies. We missed celebrating our sisterhood together, and I could see that all our Mercy students wanted to make up for lost time by painting their faces, dancing, and competing in the race for Spirit Points. I look forward to

many more memorable Mercy Rallies to come! Go Mercy! “—Claire Rietmann-Grout '04, Assistant Head of School for Student Life

PINK WEEK

Every year Mercy celebrates Pink Week in October with the goal of both supporting and honoring those journeying with breast cancer as well as educating students around breast health. During Pink Week, Mercy holds its annual Pink Rally where students donate their hair to Locks of Love. This tradition always brings many smiles as students compliment each other for weeks afterwards about their new haircuts and the gift they gave to the breast cancer and Alopecia patients, who will be the eventual recipients of their hair. Recognizing that last year was an incredibly difficult social year for many of our students and that many of our students had not been on campus for over a year, Mercy organized a Welcome Back lunch for students, faculty, and staff. The day proved to be a wonderful opportunity to build community, while providing a comfortable space to return to campus prior to the first day of classes. It was a perfect day on the Green and everyone enjoyed the taco bar and ice cream sundaes!

ON CAMPUS Welcome

LUNCH!

Head of School Welcome!

Mercy parents kicked off the year at our Head of School Welcome, class socials, and our first Mothers and Fathers Club meetings. Over 450 parents have come together in true Mercy spirit! Special thanks to our Parent Ambassadors who are leading the way.

The Mercy Tea

The Mercy Tea is a treasured event for Mercy students and their special guests. Many moms expressed their gratitude to be able to be on campus for this tradition and for the opportunity to finally meet some of their daughter’s friends since the pandemic robbed many parents of the opportunity to be on campus over the last year and a half. Not even a major storm could stop hundreds of guests from arriving at the Kohl Mansion to sip some tea, enjoy scrumptious treats, and savor the joy of being together!