---

Mercy Center’s Sisters Academy of New Jersey graduated ten girls from its independent middle school Wednesday.

Founded in 1997, Sisters Academy of New Jersey serves grades five to eight. The Mercy Center program is focused on empowering young women to break out of their community’s cycle of poverty in order to fulfill the visions they have for themselves and their futures.

Delivering the commencement addresses were two midshipmen from the United States Naval Academy who are in residence at Sisters Academy for the month of June, according to written statement from school officials.

“I look at each of you and see America’s future,” said Midshipman Dominique Adams. “Understand that you have the power to set an example and make a difference in the world, no matter your age.  As we say in the Navy, I wish you young ladies fair winds and following seas.”

Midshipman Natalie Stahl urged the graduates to learn to forge their own paths and ignore those that tell them to fall in line.

“If you want something, don’t let anyone stop you,” Stahl said. “Your goals are just that, your goals and only you can attain your goals.  Only you can persevere to make your goals a reality.”

An alumna address was given by 2012 graduate Withney Barthelemy, a recent Mercersburg Academy graduate who was awarded a full academic scholarship to Wellesley College.

“The embracing community of Sisters Academy made the obtainment of the experience of a sense of home easy,” Barthelemy said. “Here you are respected and cared for as an individual.”

In citing Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own,” Barthelemy told the graduates “to utilize the values and skills of this wonderful school and go out and make a room of your own.”

The 2016 Sisters Academy of New Jersey graduates are:

Jensine Benoit

Shantal Sarai Ferrer Escamilla

Gabriela Flores

Juvene Cierra Jean

Frantzline Immacula Jeanty

Lucibel Lopez-Dominguez

Joanna Marcellus

Monserrat Merino

Krystian Surice Newsome

E’Niah Vernell Preston

---