Owen Morrical – 7th grader

To think about what might happen in the future we have to look at the past. In the past 80 years, St. Thomas Aquinas has been a leader in many different areas. Two of those are social justice and care for creation. These two things and more are what attract people to this incredible community.

St. Thomas Aquinas has always been a welcoming community to everyone, even in times where surrounding places haven’t been. Because we always have been, I think that St. Thomas will continue to be both welcoming, and a leader of social justice. I believe that we will be a leader by having more and more of the TED talks that involve our parish, and we will support local organizations like the MLK Center. These discussions effectively bring the St. Thomas community together. And if we can get the St Thomas Aquinas Parish Future Essay word out about them to more than just the St. Thomas Aquinas parishioners, I think that STA can become more of a diverse, welcoming, and cultured community.

For a long time, St. Thomas has been ahead of the curve involving and educating people about recycling and energy efficiency. St. Thomas Aquinas School won the 2014 Green Ribbon because we have the walking school bus and make many more efforts to educate people about environmental challenges and care for creation in the world and our community. At school, we just had Earth Week last week. Mrs. Horvath does a great job organizing this and planning events to educate students about care for creation. These events can inspire students like me to be more aware of climate change and pollution problems. In the future, St. Thomas can host events like the TED talks about care for creation but instead, maybe be a little more hands on. We could do this by having a discussion about an environmental issue and then go and have an activity to solve the problem. By doing this we can involve the whole community and have fun while doing it.

I think that in the future, St. Thomas Aquinas will grow a lot because of those two things. If we can keep working on social justice and care for creation, even more, STA will become an even greater place to go to and live nearby. It will attract people who are moving here to go to St. Thomas, and it will encourage other people who already live in the neighborhood to attend St. Thomas Church and School.