The 2019 Catholic Schools Week Arts & Music Festival at Lakeside featured live performances and student art displays from dozens of elementary and high schools. Above, St. Edward the Confessor students sing “There’s No Business Like Show Business.” Here are some of the elementary school standouts in the visual arts.

Get out your cameras, kids (and adults)! From April 1-June 30, the New Orleans Catholic Cemeteries Office will be sponsoring a photo contest open to shutterbugs ages 9 and older.

A wonderful souvenir came out of St. Philip Neri’s salute to New Orleans’ 300th birthday. When members of the middle school faculty were asked to create a New Orleans-centered project for their students within their respective subject areas, reading teacher Melissa Kessler decided to ask her students to submit a beloved family recipe and a paragraph on why the dish was so special.

For as long as she can remember, Louise Jandura has enjoyed taking things apart and putting them back together again. Little did the young Jandura know then that her childhood passion for figuring out “how things work” would lead her to pursue a degree in mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and launch a career that has excited her for nearly 30 years: as a top engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) – designing, building and testing machinery that gets sent into space.

Deacon Daniel Flynn, a permanent deacon at St. Rita Church in Harahan, paid a special visit to first graders class at Stuart Hall School for Boys. Deacon Danny, the grandfather of Stuart Hall first grader Paxton Flynn, spoke to the children about what it means to be part of the clergy, the preparation involved in becoming a deacon and told them about his 1991 ordination to the diaconate.

When she came on board this past fall as the new coordinator of religious education (CRE) at St. Ann School in Metairie, Michelle Buisson Alley was asked by teachers if she could find a multi-media rosary guide that was “less scary” for children. The guides that were available tended to flash images of ominous-looking angels and Gothic-style stained-glass scenes. The recording on one rosary guide used the term “Holy Ghost” – rather than “Holy Spirit” – during the Sign of the Cross, causing students to raise their eyebrows.

Ham and cheese fly into slices of bread inside the St. Angela Merici’s parish center kitchen every Wednesday morning, thanks to some willing and able young hands. On that day, rotating groups of seventh graders from St. Angela Merici School’s Young Vincentians group report a half-hour before the morning bell to make 120 breakfast sandwiches for delivery by St. Angela’s adult St. Vincent de Paul conference to homeless and hungry guests at the Rebuild Center at St. Joseph Church on Tulane Avenue. Their work is completed in about 20 minutes, with the added timesaver of not having to spread condiments on the bread (mayonnaise and mustard are provided at the Rebuild Center). 

The 2018 Boys’ Flag Football Championships were played Nov. 14 at Immaculate Conception School in Marrero. Home favorite Immaculate Conception (above) beat Our Lady of the Lake to claim the senior championship.

At baptism, we become part of the “communion of saints” – the awesome fellowship flowing between Christians both living and dead. So, what advice might our heavenly role models give the living so we can become saints on earth, in the here and now?

Emily Pastorek, the K-7 technology teacher at Ursuline Academy, said she strives to give her students hands-on experience in the hard work that goes into the programs, apps and electronic games they use and enjoy every day.

On Dec. 4, faculty and students at Mount Carmel Academy staged “Spotlight on the Arts,” an evening of Advent fun for fourth, fifth and sixth graders and their families.

Faith Calagna had a very interesting “What I Did Last Summer” story to tell her friends when she returned to St. Edward the Confessor School this past fall to begin her seventh-grade year.

On Oct. 30, Our Lady of Lourdes in Slidell (above) captured the senior varsity title in the CSAL Girls’ Volleyball final against Our Lady of the Lake. In JV action, St. Catherine of Siena (below) had the thrill of winning the championship in its home gym, beating St. Rita, Harahan. (Photos by Beth Donze)

“The Donut Man” – a.k.a., Rob Evans, a Catholic storyteller from Pennsylvania – brought his musical program defining the parts of the Mass to St. Ann Parish in Metairie on Oct. 14.

Third graders at Stuart Hall School for Boys sprang into action when they learned that many hospital chaplains, priests, extraordinary ministers of holy Communion and others who minister to the sick and dying had a dwindling supply of rosaries to offer their patients.

On Nov. 8, fourth and fifth graders at St. Peter Claver School in New Orleans assembled two dozen Thanksgiving baskets in their religion classes for those in most need in their parish community, filling them with canned goods, turkeys and gift cards purchased through their own small sacrifices.

On Oct. 30, fifth, sixth and seventh graders from St. Louis King of France School gained a new appreciation for the priests in their lives. They spent most of that school day taking a behind-the-scenes tour of Notre Dame Seminary on South Carrollton Avenue, the graduate school home of a whopping 140 seminarians this academic year.

Last month, 120 third through seventh graders from seven Catholic parishes and schools gathered inside Dominican’s gym for Children’s Mission Day 2018, a fun-filled Saturday of prayer, stories, games, live music, crafts and Mass.

It’s a match made in canine heaven. In a unique partnership launched on Oct. 1 with the Jefferson Parish SPCA, first through third graders at Immaculate Conception in Marrero read to shelter dogs twice a month at school during their library time.

Cabrini High’s “Super Science Saturday” program, a series of learning sessions designed to help middle-school girls explore the sciences through fun activities and experiments, kicked off its 2018-19 season with a Sept. 29 session entitled “Cosmetic Chemistry.” Using graduated cylinders, test tubes and balances (scales), nearly 30 seventh and eighth graders from 13 Catholic, public and charter schools analyzed the characteristics of different shampoos (their percentage of solids, fragrance, pH level, foaming ability and grease-cutting capacity) and then determined which shampoo they would buy, based on their results. They also made their own bath soap, body scrub and dusting powder. The remaining sessions, which run through March, are open to girls in grades 4-6. Advance registration is required at www.cabrinihigh.com. Cost is $10 per student, per session. For a complete schedule, email Ann Smart at asmart@cabrinihigh.com or visit www.cabrinihigh.com/super-science-saturday.