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Health & Fitness

Black History Month Celebration in Song and Prayer

Nearly 100 fourth-through-seventh-grade students from St. Malachy School in Chicago visited Woodlands Academy of the Sacred Heart in Lake Forest Feb. 7 for a day of events including an uplifting gospel liturgy, pizza lunch, talent show and a carnival. This celebration marked the latest chapter in a Black History Month tradition between the inner-city grade school and the North Shore high school dating back to 1996.

“Today we will pray that we continue to share our lives and our stories with one another through the friendship that exists between our two schools. How blest we are to have this miraculous, strong bond that makes it possible for all of the students at St. Malachy and at Woodlands Academy to share so many experiences together and to learn so much from one another,” said Woodlands senior Caroline Watts of Lake Bluff, Ill., as she opened the liturgy, which featured music from the joyful voices of students in the St. Malachy Gospel Choir.

Watts concluded the Call to Worship by saying, “Let us pray that we, the students of St. Malachy and Woodlands Academy, bound together in our lively friendship, are able to help others find ways to develop similar friendships.”

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Following the service, St. Malachy students enjoyed a pizza lunch served by Common Ground, a Woodlands Academy student organization dedicated to encouraging and promoting a spirit of awareness along with an appreciation for community and diversity.

Students from both schools then performed during the talent show that followed while the younger children enjoyed a carnival featuring activities such as Bozo buckets, ring toss, limbo/freeze dance and Twister. 

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Woodlands Academy students from the Campus Ministry Team, Social Justice classes and the Baking Club joined with Common Ground to make this year’s celebration possible in the true spirit of “a social awareness which impels to action” (Sacred Heart Schools’ Goal III).    

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Founded in 1858, Woodlands Academy is an independent Catholic college preparatory day and boarding high school for young women, and part of a worldwide network of Sacred Heart Schools that spans 19 cities in the United States and 44 countries around the world.  A nonprofit, Woodlands Academy’s identity is rooted in Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat’s desire to inspire young hearts and minds to excel, to lead lives of integrity and to serve.  For more information about Woodlands Academy, please visit www.woodlandsacademy.org

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