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Having the Dominicans in our life has been such a blessing...The joy and the energy
that they bring to the school and to the classroom really spreads.

I have enjoyed seeing our boys thrive at Overbrook Catholic School both inside and outside the classroom,
and I feel like it's prepared them very well for next phase in their lives.

Reflecting on our journey, we now see our early years at Overbrook as truly transformational for our family.  

We were young(ish) parents, seemingly new at everything...raising children, building our careers, and even our faith.  Our faith was a component of our life, but not central to who we were at the time.  However, something deeper—the Holy Spirit—was at work within us, that urged us towards a Catholic education.  We looked at many great schools but quickly fell in love with Overbrook.  It was undoubtedly the Sisters who made the difference for us as we explored the many options available at the time.  

As a cradle Catholic, I grasped the basics of my faith but little beyond. Jody, a recent convert, was devouring all she could and drawing me along. Yet we needed guidance. When we encountered the Dominican Sisters for the first time, we knew the boys needed to be at Overbrook. We quickly found the Sisters to be the most peaceful, loving, and talented individuals we had ever encountered.  Day by day, they helped lay a strong foundation for our growing boys. 

Sister Mary Charles was one of the first to truly touch the heart of our family.  She introduced Austin, our oldest son, to Atrium.  Through this program, he began to search for anything and everything he could learn about his faith.  He loved everything about that class and set up a prayer table in our home to mirror Sisters’ classroom. He loved it so much he pushed for a few more years, ultimately attending Atrium through 5th grade, as it had not yet been made available to older students at the time. 

Another extraordinary example came during Braden’s (our youngest son) second-grade, First Communion year.  He was blessed to be in Sister Marie Celine’s class.  She went above and beyond and invested the time to truly get to know and understand him. To this day, we look back on his second grade year as a turning point.  His relationship with Sister is something that we never take for granted and is still strong today.  

Sister helped him find his confidence and explore his faith. She understood him and appreciated his kindred spirit.   

Their faith deepened further when Fr. O’Neil asked them to serve at daily Mass and attend the Junior Legion of Mary.  This introduced them in a new and deeper way to the sacraments and developed in them a great love of the Mass, as well as service to others, that continues to grow to this day.     

There are countless other experiences and individuals at Overbrook who strengthened not only the faith of our boys, but our entire family's.  Through the Overbrook community, we were making friends with many like-minded parents.  Parents who wanted to raise their children by the same values that we aspired to engrain in our household.  These interactions led to many friendships.  We began spending most of our free time with this tight-knit community, further forming and reinforcing our faith and values.   

All these remarkable people, now woven into our daily lives, deepened our own faith journey, driving us to strive to do better for our children and our family.  Each small interaction and experience added up to a life-changing period in our lives that we are eternally grateful for.  We are grateful to each Sister, those we knew well and those we did not, who have dedicated their lives to God, and to forming our young men and women.  We are grateful to the teachers at Overbrook who have done the same.  And we are grateful for the lifelong friendships we have developed; friendships that have made each of us a better Catholic, a better person, and ultimately, a stronger family, for having spent time with them. 

-Mike and Jody Murphy
Parents of Austin ('16) and Braden ('19)

Once you're there...you feel like you've always been there, and everyone is very welcoming.