Anna Maria Brown, a member of the class of 2025 at Brookewood School in Kensington, recalls a summer a few years ago when she traveled to Italy to volunteer helping disadvantaged children. It turned out to be a life-changing time in her life, as it helped her to see the beauty in everyday things, including the subjects she later studied in high school and those she will further explore during college.
Following an email interview, Brown shared with the Catholic Standard her college entrance essay in which she wrote of her experience with Cometa, an Italian organization serving vulnerable children and teenagers in foster care awaiting adoption.
“I spent the majority of my day volunteering at Cometa’s summer camp and then when I would go home, I would help with anything from washing dishes, to playing with the kids, to cooking dinner, to setting the table. Yet, the work satisfied. In the work, I and others gave attention to the creation of something beautiful and to loving the people living there,” Brown wrote.
Upon returning home and in her classes at Brookewood School, Brown began to take those lessons to heart. “I remember a moment in AP Bio when I was sitting listening intently to Mrs. (Shannon) Garvey while she was explaining cells. I was overtaken by wonder at the complexity of a little cell.”
Brown, 18, writes that her experience with Cometa also helped her try new things and give more of herself to others. “At the beginning of 11th grade, I went to school asking to mentor a fourth grader with Down syndrome who had just joined my school,” she wrote. “Because of my past experience having a brother with Down syndrome, I recognized this as an opportunity to find beauty and joy in being with her and giving myself to her.”
She also wrote, “It has been beautiful to form a friendship with her. She has so much joy and so much love.”
A parishioner of St. Bernadette Parish, Silver Spring, Brown is the youngest of six children of Steve and Donatella Brown. She said her Catholic faith is an integral part of her life and attending Brookewood (an all-girls K-12 Catholic school) since first grade has nurtured her faith tremendously.
Of her teachers, she writes, “They have helped me take life seriously and look for Christ in all I do. This love of life is something I am so grateful for.”
For extracurriculars at Brookewood, Brown played field hockey all four years and basketball through her junior year. She loves playing violin and has been taking lessons since sixth grade. “The beauty of playing music and listening to music moved me. Ever since then I’ve been taking lessons, and I really love learning it,” she wrote. She also participates in the annual walking pilgrimage to local Catholic churches and holy sites sponsored by Brookewood and Avalon (Brookewood’s brother school), as well as the Maryland Camino, a new summer pilgrimage tradition for the school communities.
In the fall, Brown will attend The Catholic University of America, where her dad has served as vice provost and dean of graduate studies and will soon be the dean of the CUA School of Engineering. She plans to study mathematics in the university honors program and complete prerequisites in order to enter occupational therapy school after completing her undergraduate degree.
Through the lens of her Catholic faith, her Brookewood classes, her volunteer work, and her extracurricular activities, Brown reflected on how meaningful it has been for her to seek and find beauty in all things, including the next chapter in her life.
“Beauty, I believe, is always there waiting to surprise us – hidden within a class, a problem, a garden. Though it cannot be manufactured, it can be desired, awaited. When it finally reveals itself, if you are willing to give yourself to it, joy arises. I look forward to participating in the beauty of college,” she said.
