It's Good to be an American...

This afternoon, our school held a big picnic. It was an effort to get everyone together, teachers, parents, and kids… as we’re all separated at the different schools now. (New readers, our school was destroyed during both hurricanes.) We had the best time. Someone donated the hot dogs and hamburgers, we had sold T-shirts to the event and made enough money to pay for a big tent… biggest tent I’d ever seen. Everyone brought either a dessert or salad… based on the first letter of your last name. There were basketball games, soccer games, tag, you name it… the kids were playing it. At the end, the boys were throwing cups of ice water at the girls and when the girls gave up, resorted to emptying the coolers on one another. Parents were sitting around talking. It felt like the 4th of July. It was almost surreal. I sat back watching everyone saying to myself, “Damn it is good to be an American”.

They announced that we are in fact going to get a new school. We’ll be temporarily fixing up our old school to house the kids, as we build our new one that could take a couple years. The community has embraced our little school and a man our Parish Priest did not know, a man from Chicago, came by to see him and told him he wanted to help, then pressed a check in his hand for A LOT of money. Father came by to tell me (he calls me Madam Treasurer) and you could tell he was so touched. He said, “Even at my age, I am constantly amazed at the kindness of others.” Our little Catholic Church has been there for so long… our little Parish School has been such a staple of the community, that people within the community… Non-Catholics, have been reaching out to help us.

It warms my heart. It was an uplifting day, full of hope. Between seeing our friends over the last 24 hours and then attending the school picnic, or as it was dubbed, ‘the family reunion’, it was a most excellent weekend.