Katia Bourganos ’15
2025 Commencement Address
June 7, 2025
As a student, Katia exemplified Pine Point’s spirit of cooperation and care, always working for the common good, both on campus and in the wider community. She was a fitting voice to highlight our school’s theme for the year: health and wellness.
How we show up when life gets complicated
Good morning, everyone—students, teachers, families, and friends. It’s an incredible honor to stand here today at the school that has shaped all of us in so many ways.
Today, I want to talk to you about the simple but powerful concept of compassion.
Compassion goes deeper than kindness and sympathy. It is being sensitive to the suffering of others, attempting to understand situations without perception or judgement, and the desire to help relieve these pains. Pine Point is a wonderful proponent of compassion, along with the core values of creativity and collaboration. In this tightly knit community where kindness and support overflows, it is natural to uphold these values. It’s easy to be compassionate when things are going well. But the real test of compassion is how we show up when life gets complicated. And life is complicated.
I studied global food security during my undergraduate degree—a field that looks at why people go hungry even when there’s enough food in the world. I learned that hunger isn’t just about food being present. Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and preferences for an active and healthy life.
Food security is based on three pillars: availability, access, and utilization- all of which sit on the foundation of stability.
Is there food in your area?
Can you get to that food?
Do you know what food to choose?
Do your answers to these questions remain the same all year round?
Although the answer for us is probably yes to these questions, over 2 billion people on our planet will answer “no”, which is roughly 1 out of 3 people.
And the causes are endless…
Climate change and severe weather can reduce harvests and harm livestock.
War or political conflicts can prevent food imports.
High market prices make food not affordable.
Or, simply, a lack of nutritional knowledge causes people to have an unbalanced diet.
And these problems cannot be addressed without compassion. They result in real psychological and physiological manifestations such as poor health, chronic stress, and even malnutrition. They are more widely experienced by impoverished people and feed the cycle known as the poverty trap.
Building compassion into the classroom
Pine Point doesn’t just talk about compassion—they build it into the classroom, the playground, the art studio. You’re learning how to listen, practicing empathy, and letting compassion take root. And when I think back to my time here, I realize that Pine Point not only gave me some of my first lessons in compassion, but it also is where I was first introduced to the topic of Food Insecurity. Some teachers and alumni will remember the Hunger Banquet. This was one day a year where no one brought lunch to school. We weren’t even supposed to eat breakfast. At lunch, we were randomly divided into groups representing the global population—upper, middle, and lower class. The upper class—just a handful of students—sat in the center of the gym, eating a full, fancy meal (which could have fed most of the gym if divided). The middle class got rice and beans. And the lower class just got rice.
It was meant to simulate global hunger and be a reminder to practice gratitude for what we have—and it worked. Our stomachs grumbled. We felt the unfairness. But what stuck with me even more than the physical hunger was how quickly the social dynamics changed. I remember each year that I didn’t land in the upper class feeling so unlucky. I remember appealing to my friends at the upper-class table for scraps- and they always declined. And I remember how the middle-class students, though only slightly better off, would joke to the lower-class group—because it made them feel like they weren’t the least unfortunate in the gymnasium.
Hunger doesn’t just divide access to food—it divides how people are treated. It shapes how we see one another. But your circumstances shouldn’t determine your value. Someone should not be seen as less just because they have less. And your worth is not how much food is on your plate.
Compassion lives in the small moments
Later, in my master’s program, I worked at a hospital clinic that helps people prepare for surgery in a process called prehabilitation. This intervention helps patients build strength, reduce anxiety, and improve nutrition before their upcoming surgeries to help them recover faster and better.
I realized the patients in the hospital experienced healthcare similarly to how people experience food insecurity. The lifestyle of many patients at the clinic such as smoking, stress, poor nutrition, and a sedentary lifestyle caused them health difficulties. Many patients did not have direct access to a hospital and would travel many hours to the clinic by car, bus, or even plane- all while suffering chronic pain and discomfort. When they entered the prehabilitation program, many patients did not have the tools to utilize the information we provided due to low health and nutrition literacy. All of these details impacted how they received care.
This is where compassionate care became key. In order to properly treat patients, I had to in part understand where they were coming from and what tools they had at their disposal. I learned to meet people where they were—not where I thought they should be, and that is compassion. Not assuming. Not pushing. But understanding their fears, their goals, and their desired pace. And when we took that time—when we built that trust—patients felt more empowered. They asked more questions. They showed up more. They felt seen.
These experiences teach something that applies far beyond a hospital:
Everyone is coming from somewhere you can’t see.
Whether it’s a teacher, a classmate, or a stranger you pass on the street—everyone is carrying something. Compassion says, “I may not understand, but I am here.” And we often think of compassion as a big thing, something you do as volunteer work or during an emergency. But honestly? Compassion lives in the small moments.
It’s listening instead of interrupting.
It’s giving someone a second chance.
It’s letting go of being right, just to keep someone from feeling small.
Compassion is your secret superpower—not just for solving big global problems—but for building the kind of life, and the kind of world, that we all want to live in.
Pine Point’s mission says it beautifully: you’re being taught to find creative solutions, to work together, and to lead with compassion. That’s not just a school motto—it’s a way to live.
Let compassion be your compass
As you, the class of 2025, prepare to enter the vast and frightening world of high school and higher education, you will meet so many people with different views, backgrounds, and experiences. And it may be overwhelming at times. You may feel the need to retreat, to question, or even to judge. The best advice I can give is that you let compassion be your compass. Let it guide the way you speak, the way you act, the way you lead.
And when you’re not sure what to do? Choose compassion. Every time.
Thank you—and congratulations to the class of 2025!
