An interview with Loretto at the UN intern Hannah Reyes

By Sophie Connors
2025-26 Loretto at the UN intern

A 2024 graduate of St. Mary’s Academy (SMA), Hannah Reyes proudly shares that she was educated by Loretto for 13 years, starting in kindergarten. Hannah spent this past summer interning at the Loretto Community’s United Nations office, where accomplishments included designing and starting to populate a robust alumni network database, representing Loretto at various U.N. meetings and leading a longitudinal research project for the Working Group on Girls. She tapped her artistic skills to design a program proposal as part of our partnership with Sisters Rising Worldwide.

Hannah’s relationship with the Loretto Community shaped her character from an early age. While attending SMA, she absorbed lessons inside and outside the classroom. By observing how her teachers and mentors carried themselves with integrity and purpose, Hannah found her own posture. As a sophomore, Hannah embraced an opportunity to engage in advocacy. She was recommended by Christine Boss, her advanced placement environmental science instructor, to Loretto at the UN Representative Beth Blissman as a potential panelist. Hannah was invited to sit on an international panel during the U.N.’s 62nd Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). The event, “My Voice, Our Equal Future: Girls Speak to Climate Change,” featured Hannah joining other young women from around the world sharing their personal connections to climate justice initiatives.

In 2023, as the U.N. welcomed in-person delegations back after COVID-19 closures, Hannah again attended CSW with seven other SMA students. The experience broadened her worldview and inspired her interest in international business and development. She held on to information about summer interns, and applied to spend this summer doing work with Loretto that was impactful and multifaceted.

For Hannah, the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF), a time of sharing about the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals, was a highlight of her summer. She assisted Beth as they welcomed the first-ever intergenerational in-person delegation to an HLPF meeting. This year, Hannah found that she could fully absorb more information, build meaningful connections and link her work to real-world projects that she’s engaging with as an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

In essence, Hannah notes that her relationship with Loretto is far more than a K-12 education — it is a lifelong foundation for justice, community and global engagement. Looking back, Hannah credits the Loretto Community with giving her the confidence, global perspective and leadership skills to navigate spaces from student government to the United Nations.

Sophie Connors joins Grace Broome as a 2025-26 development intern with Loretto / BVM at the U.N. Excited to return, she had previously interned in 2019 when she was a first-year student at Oberlin College. Now with a bachelor’s in cultural anthropology and sociology from the University of Amsterdam, she is preparing to take a position with the City of New York.