About the Founder ST. JOHN BOSCO – THE FATHER AND FRIEND OF YOUTH
GOD SEES YOU – St. John Bosco
John Melchior Bosco, SDB (16 August 1815 - 31 January 1888), popularly known as Don Bosco, was an Italian Catholic priest, educator and writer. he dedicated his life to the betterment and education of street children, juvenile delinquents, and other disadvantaged youth. He developed teaching methods based on love rather than punishment, a method that became known as the Salesian Preventive System.
“ RUN, JUMP, PLAY BUT DO NOT SIN ”
About the Co- Foundress – ST. MARY MAZERELLO – OUR PATRON SAINT
Maria Domenica Mazzarello, FMA (9 May 1837 – 14 May 1881) was an Italian Catholic nun who co-founded the Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco.
The education of girls was a particular need in the nineteenth century, and Mary decided to devote herself to this work. Hosts of farm girls from the country, or serving girls, factory workers, and street vending girls filled the streets of the city; and all of them were at risk to juvenile prostitution. She wished to educate them, and teach them a trade, to save them from the dangers of street life. She persuaded some of her friends to join her in this project. Fifteen young women now comprised the Daughters of Mary Immaculate. Fr. Pestarino busied himself with training them in the spiritual life and managed to secure a place for some of them to live in community, thus was the beginning of religious life in Mornese. The Daughters took in a few young girls and housed them, schooling them in the faith and handing down to them their knowledge of dress making. John Bosco was told of the Daughters by Fr. Pestarino, who himself was training as a Salesian of Don Bosco under the saint. Considering his vision of the young girls, Bosco decided to meet with them. He went to Mornese with his boy band under the guise of raising funds for his Oratory, but his true intention was to investigate the possibility of founding a female counterpart of the male Salesian religious order from the Daughters of Mary Immaculate.
In 1867, after meeting with them and receiving the Daughters enthusiastic response to his proposal, Bosco drew up their first rule of life. A source of the community's good spirit, sense of humor, optimism and charity, Mary Mazzarello was the natural choice for the first superior. Eventually obedience won out and she was the first Mother of the young community at age thirty.
“ALWAYS HAVE CHEERFULNESS, THAT IS THE SIGN OF A HEART THAT REALLY LOVES THE LORD- ST. MARY MAZZARELLO ”