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Center for Catholic Education at UD

Inaugural Peacemaker Reunion

By Pono Riddle

            In 2012, Rhonda Mercs became the UCDRC Director––Urban Childhood Development Resource Center, housed in the Center for Catholic Education (CCE) at the University of Dayton (UD). She was a counselor with this program since 2007 and realized the need to start the “UCDRC Peacemakers,” a prestigious group of young men and women who had leadership potential, good moral character, and a passion for bettering both their school and larger communities. Over the years, these groups of students have participated in get-together and retreats, leadership initiatives in their schools, and networking opportunities as UCDRC expanded into more schools. Since UCDRC changed its name to ECHO (Empowering Children with Hope and Opportunity) in 2016, there have been about 387 Peacemakers in the program.

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On May 21, 2019, the Inaugural Peacemaker Reunion was at Daniel J. Curran Place. About 31 Peacemakers, and eight ECHO Counselors––two former counselors included–attended. Marianist PULSE volunteer Pono created a slideshow highlighting fond memories of almost every Peacemaker get-together/retreat since 2008. In sharing testimony, some of the Peacemakers attested how much the program had contributed to other leadership roles, a higher self-esteem, and a fostering of various teamwork skills. It was nice seeing everyone interact with each other; some of the Peacemakers haven’t seen each other since either middle school or shortly before high school.

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The last event of the evening involved BINGO. In true Peacemaker fashion and like any Peacemaker retreat, the alumni were asked to mingle with each other to fill boxes for BINGO. It was nice to see that even though BINGO was over, people were still mingling, exchanging Instagram handles and/or phone numbers. Rhonda and Pono created an ECHO Peacemaker Contact Sheet to gather data on how impactful the program was to them. A St. Teresa quote, one that is on the back of every Peacemaker t-shirt reads, “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other”––a quote that each of the ECHO counselors inspire in their schools every day. We hope to have more alumni return next year for the Second Annual Peacemaker Reunion.peacemakers-12-5-17-031.jpg

P.S. Let us know if you are a Peacemaker and would like to be added to the contact sheet and share how impactful your experience in the program was! Email us at echo@udayton.edu. Also, check out our Facebook album to see more photos from the reunion!  

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