Those bonds are exemplified by the friendship between Bullock and Lindsay Wolf ’98 of Drexel Hill, who attended the school decades apart. They recall the loving care the Sisters, lay teachers and students took of the school building. Wolf, now Chief Deputy Court Administrator for Delaware County, spent the summer of her sophomore year as a member of the “Prendie Painters.” She laughs, “we painted everything—the hallways, the classrooms, and even murals throughout the school, with the most treasured being the large mural of the Prendie building on the second floor.”

Bullock, a local primary care physician, recalls, “We were responsible for cleaning the building from top to bottom because it WAS our home.” Bullock and Wolf draw similarity to the key lesson of U.S. Navy Admiral William H. McRaven’s commencement speech “If You Want to Change the World, Start Off by Making Your Bed.”They added, “It may have been a simple task, but we were required to do it to perfection. The responsibility provided us with a sense of pride and reinforced the fact that the little things in life mattered. It is a lesson still relevant years after our time at Prendie.”

When the Archdiocese of Philadelphia merged the school with neighboring Monsignor Bonner High School, they and the rest of the “Prendie Sisterhood” were devastated. For a while, it was rumored that the empty, historic building would become a retirement home or a storage facility. But it will soon be once again be a place of learning.

Thanks to a comprehensive capital campaign led by Delaware County Community College and its Educational Foundation, the former high school is being transformed into a multimillion-dollar education and training facility to meet the needs of local community members—providing equitable access to credit and non-credit classes, community programs and other resources. Slated to open in spring 2026, the new Southeast Center will provide training in high-priority occupations such as culinary arts, skilled trades, advanced manufacturing, healthcare, biomedical technology and early childhood education.

The Southeast Center is the largest priority and greatest need of the College’s Building Community Campaign, which seeks philanthropic support to complete and equip the Center with critical furniture, fixtures, and supplies. Located in the heart of Delaware County—near Upper Darby High School, the College’s largest feeder school—the 118,000-square-foot former Prendie building will be revitalized into a vibrant, full-service, technology-enabled campus. A new 30,000-square-foot workforce annex will promote biotechnology, electronics, and other career and technical education, while a 17,000-square-foot Early Childhood Learning Center will offer affordable childcare and education. For the first time in the College’s history, DCCC’s Culinary Arts and Hospitality programs will have a permanent home outfitted with state-of-the-art kitchens.

The Foundation is leading this effort in close collaboration with community and alumni groups, including those who hold deep ties to the site.

As co-founders of the Archbishop Prendergast High School Alumnae Association, Bullock and Wolf recently highlighted the collaborative transformational effort of their “home” on the Association’s Facebook page, Girls of Prendergast High. They were also excited to share an opportunity developed to create a permanent tribute space within the Southeast Center to honor the mission of the orders of Sisters and lay teachers whose dedication to education and tradition shaped many generations of the Prendie Sisterhood. To find out more about contributing to the tribute space, please visit givecampus.com/schools/DelawareCountyCommunityCollege/prendie-legacy.

“The building is getting a must-needed and deserved makeover for this new chapter,” Bullock says. Today’s Bonner Prendergast High School students will benefit from their close proximity to the Southeast Center and be able to take college courses while still in high school.”

Along with other Prendie alumnae, the two friends recently took a hard hat tour of the construction site. “There is understandably still sadness and a sense of loss, but once this building opens, I believe Prendie alumnae will be pleasantly surprised by the transformation,” Wolf says. “I am excited to see the positive impact the building will once again have on the surrounding community, which ties back to its original roots when originally dedicated on the ‘Hill of Drexel’ in 1917.’”  

Bullock adds, “Many of the crew working on the building are ‘Bonner Boys’ who followed their talents to the trades. They expressed their understanding of what the building meant to us and showed us artifacts that were carefully preserved and treated with the respect they deserve. They left no doubt that DCCC understood the alternate task at hand—to take care of our home during the next chapter of its long and rich history.”

To learn more about how to support DCCC’s Building Community Campaign and the transformation of the Southeast Center, visit dccc.edu/campaign/.