'Don’t Underestimate the Value of Your Gifts'

Each year, Larry Van Meter, 's (MFS) head of school, sits down with each member of the senior class individually to talk about their experience at the school and their plans for the future.

During his opening remarks at Saturday's commencement, Van Meter said the common thread between all his conversations with the 72 graduates was the idea that the school is a close-knit community, even a family.

"We are like a family, with the tensions and disagreements and growth that all families experience," he said. "Yet we are also like family, offering unquestioning comfort and support for one another."

Walking to the stage to the sounds of Coldplay's "Paradise" and The Verve's "Bittersweet Symphony," the class of 2012 represented the 226th graduating class at Moorestown Friends. 

The senior class selected fellow graduates Laura Bader and Bradley Beideman to be the commencement speakers, along with English Department chair Debra Galler.

In his speech, Beideman said what makes the class of 2012 special, what will bring them success, is their individuality.

"I think that high school is about forming or realizing your identity, and college is about retaining it," he said. "For better or for worse, we’ve always been ourselves and, I love that about us ... This is why we will be successful, because we are allowed to, and almost aggressively encouraged to, be who we are."

Like the many graduating classes that have preceded it, the class of 2012 has a 100 percent college acceptance rate, with students attending a variety of colleges and universities, including: Bowdoin College, University of Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Georgetown, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York University, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, Rutgers, Tufts, Wellesley College, Wesleyan University and many more.

Galler praised the graduates for their many and varied gifts: their passion, their wit, their compassion.

"In this community, we tend to share certain values: social justice, intellectual and analytical approaches to our problems, peace," she said. "The world in which these values dominate is in real danger, facing a sometimes daunting wall of hate, ignorance and, worst of all, apathy. Don’t underestimate the value of your gifts in helping to fight the good fight."

Were you at the commencement? Share your pictures with the rest of the community by emailing them to local editor Rob Scott at rob.scott@patch.com.

Check out our series of Moorestown Friends senior profiles to learn more about some of the members of the graduating class.