IWA celebrates Catholic Schools Week

Since 1974, Catholic Schools Week has become a national celebration focused on the value of Catholic education, the contributions young scholars bring to the church, and the families that bring life to their communities.

During their weeklong celebration beginning Jan. 28, Incarnate Word Academy students participated in several events including a campus-wide Mass, parent and grandparent lunches with students, guest speakers, as well as several class projects.

IWA students, family members, faculty, and staff kicked off the celebration with a campus-wide Mass in the school’s Mother Patricia Gunning Gymnasium led by celebrant Father James Stembler.

Sophomores in Sr. Eileen’s Religion classes created special gifts for the Elementary Level’s littlest Angels at the Montessori to help them understand what Catholic Schools Week is all about. Students visited Elementary Level classrooms on Jan. 29 and brought along special lanyards they crafted, as well as prayer cards explaining the four disciplines we celebrate as a country during Catholic Schools Week: Learn, Serve, Lead, and Succeed.

Devoted grandparents and those special people in their little Angels' lives joined IWA’s Elementary Level for Grandparents and VIP Day on Jan. 30. Grandparents and VIPs accompanied little Angels during classroom presentations, story time, and recess. Students also had the pleasure of meeting several local Coastal Bend professionals during Career Day on Jan. 31. Students asked questions to men and women working in careers that included a chemical engineer, an environmental scientist, a physician, an agronomist, an oral surgeon, Navy pilots and a paratrooper, and several DEA agents.

The Middle Level was honored to have many parents and grandparents join their Angels during lunch from Jan. 28 through Jan. 30 in celebration of Catholic Schools Week. During lunchtime, parents were greeted by Middle-Level administrators as well as IWA President Sammie Grunwald.

The senior class took a field trip to visit and eat lunch with the Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament at their Convent. Students received a beautiful homily from former IWA President Sr. Martha O'Gara IWBS '51 in the chapel before dining with the Sisters and enjoying a tour of the Motherhouse.

In addition to these events, there were several individual classroom and campus activities ranging from the creation of artwork celebrating Catholicism, prayer cards being gifted to homes for the elderly, as well as classrooms discussing of how IWA lives out the disciplines celebrated during Catholic Schools Week.