Stefani Collier '88 has been deeply involved in the Sacred Heart familia since her years as a student where she served as the senior class vice-president and as a math tutor. She returned to her Alma Mater as a faculty member in 1994, where she taught English and French until 2011. Stefani has been one of the many individuals who has transformed the experience at Sacred Heart High School. Consumed by wanderlust, she inspired many of her students to go out and explore the world. She lead a total of 10 international trips, taking her students all across the globe from England to France to Monaco. Her love for her Alma Mater continued even after joining the faculty at Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy in 2011. She remained an active member of the Comet familia by joining the SHHS Alumnae Association Board in addition to becoming a member of the Lincoln Heights Dollars for Scholars Board. In appreciation of her constant presence and service to Sacred Heart and the community, she was awarded with the Exemplary Service Award during "Comets Come Back" 2016.

Go, Comets!

Amidst the rapid influx of immigrants in the city of San Francisco in the late 19th century, San Francisco's first Archbishop Joseph Sadoc Alemany, a Dominican priest, wrote to the Dominican Sisters of Holy Cross Convent, Brooklyn, New York calling for sisters to teach the German immigrant children of these newly arriving families. Three young sisters were sent to respond to this call: 24-year old Maria Pia Backes, 17 year-old Amanda Bednartz, and 21 year-old Salesia Fichtner. The sisters arrived in San Francisco on November 11, 1876 to begin the mission of education that would become the Dominican Sisters of the Congregation of the Queen of the Holy Rosary (Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose).

Within two weeks the sisters had enrolled 40 diverse immigrant children in their "new" St. Boniface School, the basement of the church! Mother Pia's persistence and faith "In God Alone" led her to found 36 schools and orphanages along the Pacific coast and eventually to spread across U.S. borders into Mexico, Germany, and Switzerland during her lifetime..