In March, we were lucky to bring four students from our school to the LaValla Weekend in Esopus. It was an eye-opening experience for all of the students involved, and all of the adults accompanying them.
As a school, our main focus throughout this year has been on the Marist Day of Service. Because the Day of Service took the place of a service retreat for our sophomore students, we decided to change things up and do something different for their retreat day. On April 11th, we decided that we could try to replicate the simulation experience we had in Esopus, but under a different climate environment (i.e. no snow in Texas).
Before the simulation, we were lucky to welcome Sr. Norma Pimentel who shared her experiences from working at the refugee center in McAllen with Tomas O’Riordan. The CTM class led the simulation for the sophomores for the remainder of the day.
It was a powerful experience, even for some of our teachers who were helping out on that day.
We are thankful to the Brothers and the whole simulation team for having exposed us to the refugee situation in such a powerful way so that we could pass it along to our students.