PEABODY — 21 young men and women from the Simon Youth Peabody Learning Academy gathered at the Northshore Mall Friday morning to receive their long-awaited diplomas.
Peabody Learning Academy, a non-profit organization, serves as an educational resource for high school students who are at risk of dropping out.
After the students walked in their caps and gowns, they took their seats and listened to Academy Director Seith Bedard’s opening remarks, in which he told the students that he was proud of how gracefully they persisted through the COVID-19 pandemic.
“High school is a difficult journey for any teenager, and the COVID pandemic that we faced over the last two years has made that journey harder,” Bedard said.
Bedard went on to quote Hockey Coach Herb Brooks before introducing Northshore Mall General Manager Mark Whiting.
“‘Great moments are born from great opportunity,’ that’s what we have here today, and that’s what our graduates have earned here today,” Bedard said.
When Whiting took the stage, he said that the Peabody Learning Academy’s graduations are the brightest days of his year as a mall manager.
“There’s no greater day, no greater moment, at Northshore each year, that is more meaningful and happier for me and my staff,” Whiting said.
After Whiting led the graduates and audience in a moment of silence dedicated to the victims of the Uvalde Mass Shooting, Mayor Ted Bettencourt, Jr., took the mic and congratulated the once at-risk students for their persistence and resilience.
“You persevered – you worked your way through. I’m sure there were days where you didn’t want to deal with it anymore or thought about quitting and not going back to school, but you hung in there, and today, you have something very important, something you’ll always have: that high school diploma,” said Bettencourt.
Whiting concluded the ceremony with a charge to the graduates in which he read Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken,” and said that each and every graduating student will be faced with choices, and that the choices they make will outline their futures.
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one, you took the one, less traveled, and that made all the difference. That’s your choice, you have to do something with it. Make that path today, make all the difference in the months and years to come,” Whiting said.
Anthony Cammalleri can be reached at [email protected].
