The community of St. Lawrence Seminary High School is formed through strong bonds between students and faculty alike. St. Lawrence has created a tight-knit community that separates itself from typical high schools. Each student is placed into a fraternity, which includes around ten to twelve students. Fraternities are created with care and have balanced characteristics like grade, culture, and compatibility.

What makes these fraternities so special is the relationship between the freshmen and the seniors in the group. Each freshman is sponsored by a senior. This “mentorship” is meant to help freshmen students become comfortable at St. Lawrence during such an exciting transition period. Senior sponsors join their freshmen counterparts in chapel, liturgical ministries for mass, and many social events.

Read on to hear from St. Lawrence Seminary High School student Julio Perea about the freshman-senior sponsorship program from the eyes of a freshman.

“In past years, for faculty members like Mr. Krieg, World and U.S. History teacher, and Father John, our Rector, there was no Freshman-Senior Sponsor program. They say that such a program wasn’t in place then, however now everyone at SLS knows that this program provides some serious benefits to incoming freshmen.

As a freshman, I was really nervous to come to a school where there would be people that I not only didn’t know but that weren’t from the same city, state, or even country as me! However, coming into SLS, I knew one person and that was my senior mentor. I knew my senior, because the program starts way before school does. I received a letter from my senior that had some information about him, like where he’s from, how old he is, and his social media (Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, etc.). This is so I could contact him and ask any questions I thought of before school started.

Once the school year started, my senior and I developed a friendship of sorts. We sat at the same table at mealtime, and we asked each other questions about our lives and interests. The first week here, other than my classmates, my senior mentor was one of the only people I talked to.

My senior mentor soon helped introduce me to other people and pointed out other students who might have the same interests as me. This Freshman-Senior Sponsorship program is made so that you can start off the school year with a mentor who you can talk to and who can help you get the most out of your first year at St. Lawrence Seminary High School.”