Our newest Riley Award recipient is 18 year old Grace Coughlin.  She’s been attending Grace Lutheran for 15 years, was confirmed here, and was recognized this past spring as a graduate from Pact Charter School.  As her name suggests, our award winning Grace exemplifies God’s grace, “associated with mercy, love, compassion, and patience as the source of help and with deliverance from distress.”

Grace has served Grace Lutheran in a multitude of ways. Some of these include watching our wee ones in the nursery, teaching God’s word as a regular Sonday School teacher, and with exuberance as a VBS leader.  (In fact we had to pull her out of a running game with her VBS kids to tell her she had been chosen to receive the Riley Award!)  Her supervisors at Grace talk of her leadership skills, her patience, her excitement, her willingness to learn more, and her sincere passion for kids.  Grace has also been a responsible member of the Family Table team, helping feed families from our community.

As a Pact high school student, she attended both University of Northwestern-St. Paul and Bethel University.  This fall she will attend Bethel as an already accomplished sophomore.  We congratulate Grace on this award and are grateful for all the gifts she has shared with Grace.