For St. Mary’s Ryken senior, service is about ‘seeing people happy’
In participating in community service as part of his education at St. Mary’s Ryken High School in Leonardtown, Maryland, Dillon Peed worked with Building Bridges, a program that “increases the amount of time that students are engaged in learning, which increases their ability to succeed.”
In that outreach, Peed – a member of the Class of 2024 at the Xaverian Brothers-sponsored school – worked with a fourth-grader, and wound up having a profound impact on that young student’s life.
“One of the students that I was working with regularly and helping him with his reading, I noticed how he messed up or forgot simple, three-letter words,” Peed said. “I recognized at times that he was trying to read those words backwards. So, I convinced his mother to get tested and depending on the results, I could help him learn better.”