for Excellence

 

CLEVELAND: 082208: Saint Joseph Academy Principal Audrey Menard announced that Joan Yokie, a senior at the Academy has been chosen as one of six high school recipients from the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland to receive a scholarship from the Catholic Education Endowment Trust. Now in its 10th year, the scholarships, are named in honor of Bishop Emeritus Anthony Pilla. The program awards six scholarships to high school students entering their junior or senior year and 16 scholarships to students entering the 7th or 8th grade. One of the requirements is an essay. This year’s entrants were asked to write an essay on the prophet Job, who kept his faith through disaster and misfortune.

 

For Joan and her family, living like Job and keeping the faith against overwhelming odds is exactly how you could describe her family’s life over the past 17 years. Joan’s family was a happy middle-class family until civil war broke out in Liberia. Joan was born in a refugee camp. During the war, fearing for their safety, they fled Liberia for Sierra-Leone where her parents made great sacrifices to enroll their children in Catholic school. In 1999, when the war spread to Sierra-Leone, the family again had to leave everything behind. After years of living in refugee camps, struggling for basic necessities like food, clothing and shelter, the family was selected for resettlement in the United States. And like Job, they had kept their faith.

 

Joan is very active at Saint Joseph Academy and around the area. Joan is a member of the Unity Club and an office assistant. Joan volunteers with S.T.A.I.R.S. (Steps toward Advancing In Resettlement Skills) Girls Teen Group, and serves meals to the homeless at St. Colman parish. She is also involved in the Esperanza Youth leadership program and the C.A.A.O. (Consortium of African American Organizations) Youth Innovation Forum. This summer Joan was selected to participate in the Oelschlager Summer Leadership Institute at the University of Akron. This program introduces students to the university learning experience; improve success skills through the dynamics of leadership. According to her Guidance Counselor, John Ryan, “Joan is an extremely outgoing young woman, who even with her life experiences puts a positive spin on everything. She is someone I will remember long after I retire.”

 

Today the family lives in St. Colman parish where Joan and her mother sing in the choir; while her father teaches PSR and is a Eucharistic Minister. She also has a younger brother and sister. Describing her life, Joan says, “In my own experience, my Catholic education has helped me gain better insight into the sorrows and misfortunes that befall us in life.” She continued, “Being here in the United States with my family, and attending a very good Catholic school like Saint Joseph Academy, has been taught me the guidelines of a good Catholic Christian life. I apply this to my daily life and hope to continue throughout my entire life.”

 

Founded in 1890, Saint Joseph Academy is the premiere Catholic high school for girls in the city of Cleveland. A Saint Joseph Academy educational experience offers young women an awakening to faith, mind and the world while reflecting and celebrating God, community and oneself. Ninety-five percent of the Class of 2008 are attending college and have received $7.9 million in merit-based scholarships.