Private Education
RICHARD W. DIONNE JR.
Mentors craft friendship bracelets with incoming students during the Purcell Promise meet-and-greet for the 2025 - 2026 school year at Goddard Memorial State Park.
Mentors make the grade — and their peers do too
Saint Mary Academy - Bay View’s new program — Purcell Promise — for ninth graders sets the stage for expanding to more grades in the future BY MICHELLE MERC URE
mmercure@eastbaymediagroup.com
At 150 years old, one private school is unwrapping a gift unlike any other — the
Purcell Promise. The present isn’t a box decked out in ribbon and paper — it’s students, showing up in force to mentor and welcome the newest faces on campus. In August of 2025, a small group of girls gathered at Goddard State Memorial Park to get to know one another before the school year began. This was the first official step in fulfilling the Purcell Promise — at least in terms of mentorship —
though its origins stretch back further, to a lunch meeting in 2023. Amy Gravell, the current president of Bay View, met with Martha Murray, a member of the Board of Advisors at Bishop Hendricken High School, along with other colleagues. “I was just so impressed imagining what a program like the Options Program at Hendricken would
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“They won’t just have one buddy, they’ll have a tribe. From the classroom to the lunchroom to the playing field, these girls will be surrounded by peers who cheer them on.” JENNIFER GEARY