Students taking part in Mission Mondays at St. Pius X Parish are helping support pediatric cancer patients, cleaning up local cemeteries and brightening hospital gowns. (Photos by Georgianna Penn and provided)GREENSBORO — St. Pius X’s Mission Mondays are a new opportunity for young Catholics to use their time and talents to serve the Lord while earning service hours with friends over summer break.
Rather than mission trips that allow only a small number of young people to participate, Kat Manzella, youth director at St. Pius X Church in Greensboro, created Mission Mondays to allow more youth to meet throughout the summer.
The first session kicked off with a group of more than 25 students and their parents at Bass Chapel Cemetery in Greensboro. They were joined by members of Greenhill Conservators to clean, clear debris, scrub, polish and restore some of the headstones.
The next week, campers crafted gowns for children in Honduras who are battling cancer. Using men’s dress shirts as a base, they sewed on colorful butterflies and tiny birds to cheer the young patients.
The flexible opportunities to do good have been appreciated by parents and youth.
“I am thankful Kat reached out to my daughter, Mary,” said April Parker, director of curriculum and special projects at St. Pius X School. “Mary was not just thinking about service hours, she just enjoyed the experience. Kat involved her by putting her on the sewing machine to help make the gowns.”
Beads of Courage Inc. was Mission Monday’s third project. The national non-profit was founded in 2005 to provide inspiration and support children with serious illnesses. Patients receive a bead for each treatment milestone. Over the course of their journey, they might receive as many 500 beads, Manzella said.
As student Aoibhin Colleran explained, “We are making the beads to give to the kids for when they are a little scared, to put on their necklaces to give them some courage.”
When asked what her favorite part was about making the beads, which are bear-shaped and baked in a small oven to cure, Maddie McGovern, rising eighth-grader, replied, “knowing that these will be given to kids and will make them happy. Every single bead is a step in their journey with cancer.”
Camper Emma Long explained, “it’s nice because I just feel like a part of something bigger. … Here it’s like a little craft, but it goes a long way for other people who really want to feel happy that day.”
Students write cards to go with the beads. “You are an inspiration, you are strong, you are powerful and this bear wants to be just like you,” Emma Markun wrote.
That tangible narrative of their healing journey is powerful for the children, said Manzella, who also serves as executive director of Kisses4Kate. The local non-profit sponsors
Beads of Courage at Brenner Children’s Hospital, which is where the beads crafted during Mission Monday will be donated.
Kisses4Kate was launched in 2010 to support families that need assistance with rent, mortgage or utilities through their child’s cancer journey. The organization was inspired by a promise Manzella made to her goddaughter, Kate Thornton, who lost her battle with leukemia in 2015. Manzella keeps Kate’s memory alive through the efforts of youth who are lifting the spirits of families going through what Kate’s family experienced.
“Kate’s influence runs through everything I do,” Manzella said. “Helping kids with cancer through Kisses4Kate and inspiring students to give back in this way is and has always been a huge part of my heart.” Mission Mondays is a natural extension of that, she says. “It’s doing good for others. It’s answering the call to help.”
“My favorite part of Mission Mondays is learning about the issues in the community that really need our attention and our hope and our prayers,” said student Alyssa Danial.
“It kind of brings you together because you’re getting to have joy with your friends. You’re putting joy into helping others,” Mary Parker said.
— Georgianna Penn
Aidan Brady and Addyson Campbell were crowned prom king and queen, and everyone arrived home safely with lasting high school memories. “I loved their message; there is no need to speed, and always wear your seatbelt,” said Brandon Robinson. (Photo Provided By Barry Johnson; Lisa M. GeraCHARLOTTE — Prom season brings to mind final alterations and hair appointments, but this year two Charlotte Catholic High School students want to make sure their peers also have safe driving habits on their minds.
Abby Lynn Robinson and Isabella Tarantelli were critically injured in a car wreck that killed two of their friends after prom last year. In advance of this year’s prom, they shared their story for the first time during a March 31 program.
They asked Sarah Smith, event organizer and director of Student Health Services, to take the stage during a presentation she had scheduled with Shelli Braedon, state program director for MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving).
The program was to convince students to take MADD’s “Promposal”: pledging to have a substance-free prom night, plan for a safe ride home, and never ride with an impaired driver.
Although their experience did not involve alcohol, the girls thought the program was perfectly timed to share their story with their peers.
Sharing their stories
Charlotte Catholic High School students Abby Lynn Robinson and Isabella Tarantelli were critically injured in a car wreck that killed two of their friends after prom last year. They shared their story before juniors and seniors attended this year’s prom on Saturday, April 5. “Isabella and Abby’s story was really important to hear right before prom. It is so fresh on people’s minds,” said Lucy McArdle.A hush fell over the crowd as Tarantelli and Robinson took the stage to share their story with more than 500 juniors and seniors gathered in the school’s Fine Arts Center.
“It was supposed to be a great night of my high school experience, my very first prom ever, a night of laughter and dreams,” Tarantelli began. “Instead, it became a nightmare that forever changed my life. It is a day I will never forget. A day that became a 652-hour, or a 27-day-long blur that changed the entire trajectory of my life.”
April 6, 2024, prom night at Christ School in Asheville, was full of dancing, good food, TikTok videos and laughter until the girls – Tarantelli, Robinson and her friend Sophie Gordon from Myers Park High School – and their three dates loaded into a Volvo to return to their hotel for the night. The next thing Tarantelli and Robinson remember, they woke up in a hospital room.
Police later said the car was speeding on I-40 when it ran off the road on a curved ramp and crashed into a tree. Gordon, 16, and Robert (RJ) Fox, 19, died at the scene. Tarantelli and
Robinson were taken to Mission Hospital in Asheville in critical condition.
Robinson recalls waking up in the hospital confused and terrified. “The pain in my stomach was so overwhelming, and when I looked in the mirror, I remember I couldn’t even recognize myself,” she said. “I had scars and a shaved head.”
The worst of it was that her best friend, Gordon, whom she had known since the sixth grade, was gone. Robinson reminisced through a childhood full of sleepovers, jokes and fun growing up together.
“She was more than a friend, she was family,” she said. “I want everybody to understand the degree of the choices we make.”
When Tarantelli woke from a coma, she couldn’t move or speak. She had 38 broken bones, including her neck, back, femur and scapula. Doctors were unsure if she would survive. Her body was so shattered, her parents could not even hold her.
“I want you to imagine: you wake up in a hospital bed, there are IVs in your arms, you are seeing a very plain room, and you don’t recognize the people around you,” she said. To emphasize her story, she showed the student audience graphic photos of herself in the hospital: tubes in her nose, folded towels holding up her head, and deep, bloody wounds on her forehead.
As her body slowly healed, Tarantelli endured five grueling months of physical therapy. The once carefree, straight-A student was gone, she said. Small victories became monumental as she relearned everything – eating, speaking, reading, thinking and walking.
“I can never forget the tears in my parents’ eyes when I took my first steps towards them, an awkward little waddle,” Tarantelli remembered. “Every step I take now is not only for myself but for RJ and Sophie, because they can’t do it for themselves. Every step I take is filled with pride, honor and strength.”
Prayers answered
She thanked Charlotte Catholic High School for the support she received, from the plastic jar filled with cards she kept by her bedside, to the spiritual flower her English teacher Jeremy Kuhn gave her, to the prayer services the school community held, to the hours of prayer teachers led in class.
School President Kurt Telford said, “We have two miracles – both Isabelle and Abby. Our prayers were answered. There has been a lot of praying since April 6, and we continue praying.”
Even Bishop Michael Martin, a few days after becoming bishop-elect, visited the school in the wake of the crash and prayed for the two girls’ recovery.
“Each and every one of you that has prayed for me at one time, I just want you to know that I am forever grateful,” Tarantelli said as she twirled around in a circle on stage. “I want you to look at me and know this is what you prayed for, standing in front of you and talking to you.”
Despite 16 scars on her leg and one across her forehead, permanent reminders of that night, Tarantelli sees a wonderful outcome through all the pain.
A week before the accident, she had received the sacrament of confirmation, but she did not consider herself a strong believer.
It took almost dying for her to fully accept Christ, she said.
“Now I turn to Him in all my moments. I could not have made it through any of this without the power of faith, prayer and God’s promise.”
— Lisa Geraci
MADD statistics
MADD’s Shelli Braedon,shared these statistics:
A drunk-driving crash claimed the life of someone in the U.S. about every 39 minutes, according to 2021 data from the National Highway Safety Traffic Administration.
That year in Mecklenburg County alone, there were 6,123 crashes involving teenagers, and 1,382 of those were alcohol-related, she said, citing the North Carolina 2021 Traffic Crash Facts report.
She also noted that while 70% of teenagers refrain from drinking, 26% said they would get into a car with an impaired driver.