On December 9th, SHA hosted a Christmas Celebration with the students of All Saints Catholic Academy. This celebration was a part of SHA’s recent efforts to increase community engagement and was organized by our new Manager of Student Experience and Engagement, Mrs. Jennifer Raccio ’93. The All Saints elementary school students from kindergarten to grade 3 enjoyed a day full of Christmas spirit. Upon entering the library, they were met with a line of candy canes, welcoming them into the “North Pole”. Here, they took part in interactive storytelling, learned a fun Christmas dance, and decorated ornaments to share with their families. Onto the next activity! The children rotated between three festive rooms with new opportunities for fun. In the lecture hall, they played pin the tail on the donkey, Christmas tree bowling, and a game of darts using snowballs. In the last room, crayons were spilled out on the tables and the SHA students and All Saints children colored their hearts out before making a trip to visit Santa. Of course, the day didn’t end just yet! We made one last journey to the cafeteria for cookies and hot cocoa. The decorations and the live Christmas carols by Ms. M and Jelayni Carabello ’23 made it feel like a Christmas wonderland for the children. The senior class of 2023 took the lead in hosting these activities and our designated captains, Tiearra Charles, Nelizeh Ambrose, Abby Moran, Sienna Otto, Megan Doyle, Chase Ireland, Elisha Telfort, and Jase Upchurch took charge of spreading Christmas cheer. Senior Captain Abby Moran recalls the special day:

“Having the All Saints kids at SHA was an extremely heart-warming experience, it was an awesome way to get into the Christmas spirit! I think all the girls really leaned into it and did a great job being role models and leaders for the kids. I really hope we continue this as a tradition because I personally really enjoyed it and it seemed like the kids did as well!”

Children from all grades of All Saints Catholic Academy will receive Christmas stockings as part of SHA’s Annual Stocking Drive. Members of the SHA Community and students of Quinnipiac University donated stockings which were collected the day before and will also be distributed to students at St. Martin de Porres School in New Haven. We would like to thank our Student Council Executive Board and our STUCO Moderators, Mrs. Nuñez and Ms. Halloran for organizing the stocking drive- as well as our Campus Ministers, Sr. Allison and Mrs. Welch for planning our donation mass which was held in conjunction with the Immaculate Conception liturgy. For more information on the stocking drive tradition, see our previous article.  We hope to continue this community outreach in years to come and owe the success of this event to all those who volunteered, participated, and donated.