The Sisters of Mary School is a non-stock, non-profit, non-paying, live-in secondary institution for the marginalized poor of our country. The school is maintained and supported mainly by donations, gifts and bequests coming from noble, selfless and well meaning persons and entities, local and foreign.
The founder, the late Rt. Rev. Msgr. Aloysius Schwartz became Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for International Understanding in 1983. Msgr. Schwartz fondly called Father Al was invited by Jaime Cardinal Sin, then Archbishop of Manila, to establish Boystowns and Girlstowns like those in South Korea here in the Philippines. After seeing the plight of our depressed, deprived and oppressed sector of the society, he decided to give-in to the request of the good cardinal.
He started his Boystown and Girlstown program in Manila in 1985 then in Cebu and Cavite. The Sisters of Mary of Banneux, the religious congregation founded by Fr. Al runs the schools. Every year there are more or less twelve thousand high school boys and girls from all over the Philippines benefited by this program.
The school operates on a year-round basis with only two weeks vacation. Teachers from distinguished colleges and universities are hired, given good salary with many fringe benefits and provided with good working conditions. Quality Secondary Education with intensive Voc-Tech Curriculum is offered to everybody. With approval from DepEd and DOLE, the Fourth Year are given On-The-Job Training (OJT) at the middle of the school year which eventually end up or ripen into employment in the work where they are in.
Having this for almost twenty years, the administrators thought of moving onward to meet the needs of competitive world of work for the students.
They believe that to be more productive the graduates must keep abreast with the current call of the time; they need to be globally competent and viable in their field of interest. This way, the institution can help not only spiritually but holistic in the development of the youth – the hope of the motherland.
One of Fr. Al’s favorite sayings is “My children you are created not to be fat little ducks waddling in the mud but eagles destined to rise above and explore the kingdom of God.”
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