Students are challenged to give their time, talents, and resources to people in need
Contributed by
Heathwood Hall
Episcopal School

The 2007 Graduating Class of Heathwood Hall Episcopal School

Families, friends, teachers, and fellow students gathered downtown this morning at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral to celebrate a milestone in the lives of 52 young people: the Commencement of Heathwood Hall's Class of 2007. The event was part worship service and part graduation ceremony. It began with the traditional grand procession of seniors, faculty, administrators, and Episcopal clergy including the Rt. Rev. Dorsey F. Henderson Jr., Bishop of the Diocese of Upper S.C. The procession was led into the Cathedral by twin bagpipers.

The Reverend Mike Kinmann, executive director of Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation (ERG), delivered the commencement address. EGR is a grass- roots movement of Episcopalians connecting and collaborating to follow Christ, end extreme poverty, and heal a broken world through steadfast commitment to the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). In 2000, leaders from 189 nations including the U.S. adopted the MDGs and agreed to cut extreme global poverty in half by 2015. They unanimously adopted the Millennium Declaration, pledging "We will spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty to which more than one billion of them are currently subjected."

The Rt. Rev. Dorsey F. Henderson Jr., bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Upper S.C.; Walker Graham; Dean Philip Linder; and Raven Tarpley, Heathwood Hall chaplin; prepare for the procession into Trinity Cathedral for the graduation ceremony of the 2007 graduation class of Heathwood Hall Episcopal School.

Kinmann charged the graduates with identifying a need somewhere in the world that each of them could serve and with having the faith and passion to change the lives of those less fortunate. At one point in his address, he paused dramatically for a time and then began to snap his fingers in a slow and steady cadence.

Kinmann said, "Every three seconds (snap), a child dies somewhere in this world (snap). There's one (snap). There's another one" (snap). Kinmann then challenged the graduating seniors to fight the many preventable causes of such deaths worldwide by devoting themselves to giving their time, talents, and resources to people in need.

Service already is part of the fabric of these young peoples' lives. Together, they completed more than 5,000 hours of community service while in high school, including a trip to the Rural Mission at Johns Island, a tradition for Heathwood senior classes, where they repaired and restored homes for underprivileged families. Now, they move on to college campuses across the country. The Class of 2007 earned acceptance to 95 different colleges and universities in 23 states. The 52 graduates were offered $2.5 million in college merit scholarships, 70 percent qualified for Life Scholarships, and 13 percent qualified for prestigious Palmetto Fellows Scholarships.