With the start of a new school year comes new extracurriculars. Juniors Maddie Dwyer and Audrey Peterson started Lift, an acronym for Living In Fellowship and Truth, to bring a faith-based group to STA.
Dwyer describes Lift as, “A youth group at STA where we can deepen our faith in St. Teresa’s roots and help everyone find a way to connect with others and their faith that they haven’t been able to do at STA before.”
Dwyer and Peterson came up with the idea to start Lift after returning from a CSJ leadership camp.
“When we came back from the camp, there wasn’t an outlet to continue our faith the way we wanted to, so we decided to create that at STA,” Dwyer said.
“We started Lift to create a welcoming community of faithful girls at STA,” Peterson said. “Our goal is to inspire girls to develop their relationship with the Lord while being empowered through the CSJ mission.”
Dwyer wants Lift to be an extracurricular open to all.
“Lift is for everyone,” Dwyer said. “You don’t have to be Catholic. It’s a space that you can learn, have fun and become closer with God and other people.”
Dwyer and Peterson both felt inspired to start Lift because of the role religion plays in their lives.
Religion is a way to talk about what I’m feeling,” Dwyer said. “It [religion] helps me have a quiet moment to myself or connect with people that I don’t think I shared the same beliefs or ideas with.”
“In my own experience, growing in my faith has benefited every aspect of my life and the relationships I have made along the way are priceless,” Peterson said. “I want to allow STA students the chance to create lifelong relationships rooted in faith.”
Junior Gabby Egan decided to join Lift to grow in her faith and community.
“I really enjoy being a part of a group,” Egan said. “I liked what they [Lift] had to say about bringing people closer together as a community within STA.”
Dwyer and Egan are looking forward to the first Lift meeting.
“We will be doing a lot of crafts and activities,” Dwyer said. “We’ll also be learning different ways to pray and talking about our faith.”
Egan is excited for one activity in specific.
“We’re about to do Tell Me S’mores which I think is really cute, because we’re going to make s’mores and just talk about ourselves and what we enjoy about going to STA and our religion,” Egan said.
