About 50 years ago, at the height of Beatlemania, I attended first grade at St. Clement I Catholic School in what some folks call Lansdowne and others know as Halethorpe. Delia Dowling, a School Sister of Notre Dame fighting the good fight along Hollins Ferry Road with grace and grammar, just calls it Baltimore.
After second grade, my family moved a few miles south to the more prosperous suburb of Linthicum, and I never set foot in a St. Clement classroom again — until earlier this year. On a cold, sunny afternoon, I was the guest of Sister Delia, who wanted to show a reporter how the parish school — closed in 2003 — had been reborn as a middle school for girls: The Sisters Academy of Baltimore.
Founded by women from four Catholic religious orders — the Sisters of Bon Secours, Sisters of Mercy and the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in addition to the School Sisters of Notre Dame — the school is now in its 11th year.
Independent of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, Sisters Academy represents the best of American Catholicism and the communities of religious women who anchor the faith in ZIP codes abandoned by almost everyone else.
Declaring that the school exists not because their students are Catholic (most of them are not) but because they are Catholic, the Sisters are fiercely committed to children being left behind as the middle class continues to erode and the working class is left to scurry for crumbs.
About to be accredited by the Association of Independent Maryland Schools, Sisters Academy serves some 90 girls in grades 5 through 8 from all backgrounds, many of them African-American and Hispanic.
The good sisters are too diplomatic to say these adolescents deserve a better route to adulthood (mind, body and soul) than the ones offered by most public schools in Southwest Baltimore. But they are quick to point out that 100 percent of their first three graduating classes earned a high school diploma. Of those, more than 90 percent have entered college.
It doesn't cost a dime for the low-income families fortunate enough to have their daughters accepted after a thorough application process, which includes a three-week summer program where candidates are evaluated.
I asked my parents if they remembered what it cost to send me to St. Clement when we lived on Daisy Avenue when Dad worked a union job on the Fells Point tugboats in the midst of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society.
But, unlike the house payment, heat and newspaper expenses, my parents had not saved a budget envelope for the Catholic education they reckoned would propel me and my brothers further up the ladder. Mom remembered only that "it wasn't free."
No matter. Like my diplomas from Mt. St. Joseph High School and Loyola College of Maryland, it can't be taken from me. Just as it is unlikely treasure for the growing alumni of the Sisters Academy.
When I asked Sister Debra Liesen, the principal, why families weren't lined up around the block trying to enroll their children, she said that the school remained something of a secret.
Thus my invitation to re-visit the site of my First Holy Communion at 139 First Avenue and spread word about the Academy's Saturday, April 25 "Hoe-Down" fundraiser at Montgomery Park in celebration of its first 10 years.
"We now have results," said Sister Delia, the school president, referencing graduates who have gone on to private high schools, public prep schools like Western High School (Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's alma mater) and college.
"We want to increase our name recognition and expand our circle of friends," said Sister Delia, noting that a very special group of friends sponsor a student to the tune of $6,000 a year throughout the four years she is at Sisters Academy.
As Mom might say, that's a lot of butter and egg moolah.
There are many aspects of the education provided at Sisters Academy — spiritual growth, outreach to others, a "girl by girl" approach to transforming the beleaguered City of Baltimore — that are hard to put a price on.
One of them would be especially appreciated by my mother, who spent much of my childhood vacuuming behind the sofa even though I often pointed out that nobody looks back there.
"All of the girls have chores," said Sister Delia. "So they can appreciate cleanliness and beauty."
Rafael Alvarez is a short story writer living in Greektown. He can be reached via orlo.leini@gmail.com.