Nerinx Hall senior Hayley Preusser among 29 high school teens to be honored at annual MLK Mass
Hayley Preusser believes that justice is more than standing up for others in situations of wrongdoing.
“Justice is standing up for everybody, whether you agree with them or not, whether you relate to them or not,” she said.
The Nerinx Hall senior has found plenty of opportunities to seek justice through service through her school and beyond. For that, she is one of 29 teens from Catholic parishes and high schools in the archdiocese who will be honored with the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Model of Justice Award Jan. 18 at the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis. The awards ceremony is a highlight of the 50th annual Mass for the Preservation of Peace and Justice, which commemorates King’s birth and legacy.
In her nomination letter for the Model of Justice Award, Becky Giunta, Nerinx’s director of service learning, said Hayley serves the needs of her school and the broader community, “in particular advocating for justice for people of all abilities and all cultures. She is especially dedicated to serving migrants and refugees in our community and to promoting justice for all people.”
Last year, Hayley served as an intern for the archdiocesan Office of Peace and Justice and participated in lectures and service activities with the goal of highlighting injustices and calling for action. As an intern, she helped organize a student-run conference on the death penalty, in which more than 300 high school teens learned about capital punishment through a Catholic lens. Other topics she explored through the internship included ecology, food insecurity and immigration.
Beyond her internship, Hayley has been active with organizations that serve people in need, including the Sts. Peter and Paul Meals Program, St. Pius V Food Pantry, Sweet Celebrations, Ten by Three and For Goodness Cakes.
She also volunteers as a tutor with Welcome Neighbor, helping tutor Yalda Qazizada, a sixth grade girl who moved here from Afghanistan a few years ago.
“I truly enjoy spending time with Yalda every week, and like seeing her grow is so rewarding,” Hayley said. “When I’m doing service, I try to become personal with the people that I’m serving. I’m not just there to do a task … I am there to connect with the people and the community.”
Hayley said she believes those service activities are opportunities for justice and to express what Dr. King called for in his description of a “beloved community” — one that is rooted in justice, equity and peace, and where all people are united by love.
“At the end of the day, everything that I’m trying to do with service and social justice work is relating back to that idea of his beloved community that he sought to create,” she said. That includes “creating those deeper connections with the people I serve and ease the injustices that I see around me in my community,” starting with those closest to her and expanding to the broader community, she said.
As a junior, Hayley attended the United Nations Conference on the Status of Women, where she and five classmates traveled to the U.N. headquarters in New York and participated in talks by speakers from around the world on the status of women in the current political, social and economic climate. Her experience there influenced her future plans to pursue a degree in political science and eventually attend law school. Those areas of study will allow her to address the complexities of injustices with a balance of service and advocacy.
“That’s sort of the goal with getting into politics and law — on that side of things, you can engage on a more technical level with representatives and officials, but then at the same time, you have to continue to do the physical service, helping the people that are in need,” she said.
