SportsZone: Marleigh Jackson

Marleigh Jackson is a champion on and off the basketball court.

As a basketball player, the PC junior who hails from South Philadelphia has won a lot of games and helped her team rack up postseason accolades. Through her first two seasons on the hardwood in East Falls, Jackson and company posted a combined record of 35 wins, 20 losses and two Inter-Ac championships – a shared title in 2024 and an outright crown in 2023.

This season, the Quakers have gotten off to a 9-5 start to the season as Marleigh has continued to claim a more significant role on the team. She is in her second season as a full-time varsity starter and credits basketball as her social launching pad once she arrived at Penn Charter ahead of her freshman year.

“A lot of my class already knew each other from middle school, so socially it was definitely something new,” said Marleigh, who attended The Philadelphia School in Fitler Square through eighth grade. “The great thing for me was I was introduced to the basketball team within a week. They were so open and inviting, and we all became best friends. I was socially nervous at first, but I got used to it.”

Marleigh also had to adjust to a different and more rigorous curriculum from her old school, which did not give students typical letter grades. When she started at PC, she experienced a level of stress academically to which she was unaccustomed.

“It was definitely a lot of pressure; I didn’t get grades before, and now in my mind I have to get all A’s,” she said. “We didn’t have standardized tests or tests in general, so it was a shocking switch at first.”

Marleigh is far from the first PC newcomer to be initially overwhelmed when walking through those red doors for the first time. She confesses that she had doubts that she had made the right choice, ones that lingered into the first few months of her freshman year. 

Then, as more time passed and Marleigh got more comfortable within her new surroundings, she began to discover something else that hits every new student at differing times and ways – how much everyone in this community cared for her and about one another.

“Once the teachers showed me how much they truly cared about every student in the building, it was really powerful,” Marleigh said. 

Like many Penn Charter students over the years, Marleigh found her sense of purpose within the school’s Center for Public Purpose. She referred to CfPP director Alyson Goodner as her “school mom,” and was struck by how much Goodner checked in on her even though she is not Marleigh’s advisor. 

“Once I met Ms. Goodner and started interacting with her,” Marleigh said, “I knew that I was exactly where I needed to be.”

One thing about Penn Charter that was not a culture shock for Marleigh was the school’s focus on service and giving back to the community. In second grade at her old school, Marleigh said her class received a lesson on homelessness in Philadelphia. Marleigh was only 7 or 8 years old at the time, so she did not fully grasp the intricacies and nuances of such a complex issue.

However, something took a hold of Marleigh after that lesson, and she began asking more and more questions about bigger issues to teachers and family members. Within a couple of months of Marleigh’s arrival at Penn Charter, Goodner and Isaiah Grimes OPC ’23 brought the new freshman into PC’s Food Security Club that was led by Grimes. 

“It brought me right back to my second grade self,” Marleigh recalled. “I had so many questions about so many issues in Philly that I was not aware of. The food security program gave me an outlet to try and help, which is really important to me. I grew up in Philadelphia – it’s my community, my city. I feel like we are all interwoven.”

Landing at a school built on Quaker principles was also invaluable for the service-oriented Jackson. When she was growing up, she attended Camp Dark Waters in Medford, N.J., an organization founded in 1928 that provides a simple natural setting for summer enjoyment under Friends leadership. The camp was a transformative experience for a young person who had no previous knowledge of Quakerism.

“I had no Quaker familiarity and had never experienced Meeting for Worship or other Quaker stuff at any other school or camp,” Marleigh said. “It gave me a sense of community that I had never felt anywhere else, and it was because of the Quaker values. Going into my high school search, I was looking for a place where those kinds of beliefs were prevalent.”

On that front, Marleigh hit the jackpot. She and classmate Jaden Black have continued to make inroads with food insecurity in Philadelphia. Marleigh said that she and Jaden have worked with food security units in both the Middle and Lower schools at PC to help mold and shape a younger generation of community servants. One of the joint initiatives was the founding of Friends Fridge, a collaboration with St. James School that serves the Allegheny West and Nicetown-Tioga neighborhoods. Marleigh said she and Jaden have been making regular food drops throughout this school year, items like carrots and peanut butter to help homeless and underserved communities have access to food during the winter months.

“We’re very proud of Friends Fridge and how it’s brought people together,” Marleigh said. “We’ve been able to have talks with people we never would have met before. Coming to Penn Charter and engaging in service work has shown my middle school self how much I took for granted. I was so naive and didn’t realize what was going on outside of my small grade school. It’s heartbreaking, but it also gives you the push toward more awareness and to get more involved.”

Marleigh said that she and Jaden have also partnered with the school’s Green Club through the CfPP, leading to different service platforms that she had been previously unfamiliar with. She is also a member of PC’s Certificate Program, which is open to PC juniors and seniors and helps students explore different focuses and passions as they get closer to graduation.

This year, Marleigh is working toward a certificate in Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability, which she said pushed her out of her own comfort zone toward learning about a different type of service initiative. Jaden is on track for a certificate in Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Justice, and Marleigh said the students within the different certificate programs have found ways to work with each other to find overlapping connections.

“I went into the environmental circuit instead of DEI and I wondered if it was the right idea, since DEI and food insecurity are so connected,” Marleigh said. “I chose it to push me out of my range while finding ways to connect DEI and food insecurity to the environmental factor. It allows those in the certificate program to get a greater understanding [of broader issues] while not just focusing on one thing.”

In addition to basketball and her CfPP responsibilities, Marleigh is considering a future return to the tennis court as a senior – the other sport she played growing up. She’s also interested in joining the band or jazz band before her time at PC is up. 

She said she’d like to play basketball in college but it won’t be her main priority when it comes time to choose. Though she’s not sure which academic direction she’ll pursue, she wants her path to be centered around service.

“I feel confident like I’m definitely in the right space,” she said. “I have college counseling to help me really figure out what my passion is. I’m confident in Penn Charter to help me do that.

“Basketball pushed me to be more confident in myself. It was pressure at first, but I know I can push myself to get there.”
 

– Ed Morrone OPC '04