Don Bosco Cristo Rey student who ‘jumped into everything’ heads to College of the Holy Cross
Natalie Chicas grew up knowing that nothing would be handed to her — not because her parents said it, but because she watched them build a life from the ground up. She comes from a family that turned an apartment complex into a village, and their shared dream became the foundation for everything she’s working toward today.
The 18-year-old senior at Don Bosco Cristo Rey High School – a coeducational school in Takoma Park, Maryland jointly sponsored by The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington and the Salesians of Don Bosco – will attend the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, this fall, where she plans to study economics.
Chicas transferred to Don Bosco Cristo Rey as a junior from a large public high school, where she often felt like just another face in the crowd.
“Teachers didn’t know your name unless you were in their class,” she said. “Here, even if I didn’t have a teacher, they’d still know who I was.”