Thanks to Mrs. Rider for the following summary!

We had a fabulous pilgrimage – 44 students and 10 chaperones joined myself, Steve Clark, Fr. Jeff Hanley as well as our Vocations Director Fr. Jose Haro! It was a great group. Our time began with mass at St. Joseph on Captiol Hill and then included wonderful tours of the Capitol Building, the DC Monuments as well as participation in the opening Mass at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, silent protest outside of Planned Parenthood with Fr. Frank Pavone of “Priests for Life” where both Lucy Backman and Grace Pierucci lead the crowd in prayer of the St. Monica ProLife Prayer. We attended the Youth Rally with over 18,000 other students at the Capitol One Arena where the Mass for Life before the Rally on the National Mall was held. Our students joined in setting history with being in attendance when Pres. Trump took the stage in support of life as the first president to attend and speak at the March for Life Rally.  We walked with tens of thousands of marchers and peacefully but loudly stood in defense of life from the Moment of Conception to the Moment of Natural Death.

Hackett has participated for more than 20 years in the March for Life. This year, of our 19 seniors – 4 have attended all four years, 4 for three years, 4 for 2 years and 7 for their 1^st time. 9 juniors, 4 sophomores and 12 freshman attended. We actually ran into the St. Phil/St. Joe leader in the process of the march and Fr. Tom visited while the LMC kids were on their capitol tour Thursday evening. We also had alumni “find us”, truly at the rally on the mall that was so tight – so tight we could not move!!. But Grace Erving ’16, Evans Brown ’17 located our group. Emme O’Brien ’19 found us as well and we heard that Tessie Schonder ’18, Sarah Schonder ’16, Molly Harding ’18 and Delaney Carey ’19 were amongst the crowd.  Kathy Williams also found us while marching with the students from Ann Arbor.

Two of our parent chaperones have joined us two and three times – the pilgrimage was fabulous, spiritually encouraging and empowering to see so many young students, seminarians, priests and families!