Some people may call her Tori. Some people know her as Pez, but everyone knows this fun loving girl. We also know her as the friendly, funny girl in the senior class, but what we may not know is that Tori is a tutoring, soccer playing, Padua loving girl.
Back in her eighth grade year at Notre Dame De Lords in Swarthmore, PA, she decided to shadow at Padua. Tori always knew about Padua. Her mom went to Padua and Pez has loved it since the day she herself shadowed here: “I love it here. Honestly. I have loved it since I shadowed and feared graduation since my first day freshman year. I love the feel of the environment. Everyone is welcome and we are encouraged to grow and challenged to do our best. I think the teachers care about the students as an individual. And we become sisters. The course load is hard but not impossible. There hasn’t been a time when I wished I wasn’t here.”
Victoria Pezdirtz is involved in multiple things ranging from service to sports. She plays on the Padua soccer team, she takes the Drama and Shakespeare class, teaches the Improv activity, taught herself how to play the piano, and is taking guitar lessons. What’s more, she’s involved with her Church: Eucharistic Minister, helps with CCD, and she started the high school youth group.
The most important service activity she is involved in is the Jefferson homeroom here at Padua. When asked about the Jefferson homeroom and what it was, Tori said, “The Jefferson homeroom is the Nobel Prize for community service. Padua was the first school to establish a homeroom that meets every day to work on engaging the school in service and fulfilling the Jefferson requirements. I was asked to join the homeroom. Teachers and faculty got together to choose students whom they felt were leaders.” When asked about the kind of service Victoria does, she responded with a very intriguing response. She said, “Most of it is in my Church (listed above). I also tutor kids at Padua. Since everyone’s brain works differently, I show them different study skills that work with the way they learn. I also coach as a volunteer. I coach kid’s soccer and help out with basketball.” The teachers and faculty were very intelligent by choosing Tori to be one of the girls involved with the Jefferson homeroom.
Tori is also on the Youth Advisory Board (YAB) for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. This is a group of selected teens who get together to give a voice to young adults in the arch diocese. Being on that, the teens were asked to write an essay on a topic. From there, they chose one of the essays to be published and Victoria’s was chosen. It was published in the Phaith magazine and they asked Tori to write more articles. So far, she has published two articles.
As this article told, Tori is a very generous, fun loving, friendly, funny person and we all wish her the best as she continues to do multiple service activities, sports, and writing for the Phaith magazine. We must learn from her and always remember her advice to us which is, “Honestly, stay true to yourself!”