St. Vincent De Paul school celebrates Catholic Schools Week

It’s Catholic Schools Week. News 25’s Lorraine Weiskopf stopped by St. Vincent De Paul’s Catholic School in Long Beach during their morning prayer and preach.

Singing, dancing, and praying: that’s how students at St. Vincent De Paul’s Catholic School in Long Beach start their day. The excitement carries on after their morning prayer and preach as teachers have activities planned for Catholic Schools Week. Principal Carol Church said, “Today, we were talking about the gifts and talents God gives and how we can shine our light to others and not only grow closer to God with our gifts and talents and our own prayerful life, we can also shine that light for others and bring others in.”

The purpose behind Catholic Schools Week is to showcase how this type of education benefits young people and impacts the community. Teacher Tara Melones said, “What we instill here is love of neighbor service, taking care of each other, and reaching out to other people. I’m sure other schools do that as well, but we’re able to incorporate that with our faith, making it that much better and take it to the next level.”

While teachers at St. Vincent De Paul stress that public schools offer a terrific education, there are restrictions. Before Carol Church was principal she taught in public schools. “The one thing I couldn’t do was share my faith and so I felt like there was a component missing and I found other ways to instill my moral and values through quotes and other things like that.”

For the teachers who attend Catholic school growing up, they hope their students will also appreciate the system. Teacher Tiffany Brennan said, “I share my experiences with them and our shared stories, we take them to the community. We bring more people to our schools that way.”

Teacher Cindy Cox said, “I hope that someday these children look back on this and love their Catholic school as much as I love mine.”

“I encourage everybody to come out and check out these Catholic schools and see what’s going on because we really do have great Catholic schools.”