Alverno High School Celebrates Founder’s Day

Alverno High School students recently celebrated the founding of Alverno High School on the feast day of their founding order. Originally founded by the Sisters of St. Francis in 1960, Alverno celebrated Founder’s Day with a liturgy and workshops focused on the school year theme of “Mind, Body, Spirit.”

Students started off the morning with an assembly featuring performance poet, Azure Antoinette of STUDIO: alchemy, who spoke about the impact of social media on our world. During the assembly Azure asked students to recount what the top trending social media topics were in the early months of 2012. She then helped the students to understand the connection between their social media posts and the prominence of stories in the media.

Following the assembly, students returned to their classrooms where they discussed St. Clare and the firsts in their lives. In November, Alverno will be working with She’s the First to help fund girls’ education in the developing world through several cupcake sales. Tying in that relationship, students discussed how they were the first in their families to compete in the Junior Olympics, first to attend an all-girls school, and how some will be the first to attend college.

Keeping the school year theme of “Mind, Body, Spirit” in mind, students were then given the opportunity to attend various workshops on campus. Workshops themes included the importance of laughter, packing a healthy lunch, tai chi, yoga, hobbies and toys, and so much more. Alverno students were fortunate to enjoy four workshops with special guest presenters.

Josie Loren, of ABC Family’s Make It or Break It, conducted a workshop called “Spreading Kindness with Letters” where she introduced students to her non-profit, Rainy Day Notes. The concept behind Rainy Day Notes is to write notes of kindness that are then distributed to people all around New York City.

The workshop Think Like A Champion was run by teen life coach, Jessica Berger. As a certified Teen Wisdom life coach, Jess works with teen girls and young women to navigate through the trials, tribulations, and transitions of adolescence and early adulthood. During the workshop, Jess helped Alverno students to create an action plan to help them bridge the gap between where the girls are today and where they want to be in the future.

Azure Antoinette and Alverno English teacher, Carla Tomaso, oversaw a workshop called The Power of Writing that allowed the girls to learn the importance of writing and the impact it can have. Going along with the theme of “She’s the First,” the students were given a writing prompt that asked them to consider what they wanted others to know about them and how that impacts who they are as individuals.

The final guest speaker was Gabrielle Thomas of My Beauty. Gabrielle spoke to the girls about the importance of inner beauty and the special qualities that make up each girl but also talked about the importance of women’s health and taking care of our bodies. The girls had the opportunity to make a homemade body scrub and discuss what they felt made them beautiful and unique.

The day ended with a liturgy that celebrated the legacy of Alverno’s Franciscan and Immaculate Heart roots. Individual girls shared their experience as “firsts” in their lives and talked about how Alverno has helped them to have even more firsts than they ever dreamed of.

“Alverno is fortunate to have such strong values in our school history,” said Ann Gillick, Head of School. “Each year on Founder’s Day we not only celebrate these roots, but also look forward to the future and the gifts that each of our students bring to our campus community. This year we paid special tribute to St. Clare and asked our students, ‘What were you the first to do?’ Many of them shared tremendous stories and accomplishments that demonstrate the many ways Alverno empowers each young woman to be exactly the person she wants to be.”

About Alverno High School

Alverno High School is a Catholic, private, college preparatory school for young women dedicated to preparing them to function in a society as informed, knowledgeable persons, who have the requisite skills to make and implement mature decisions about complex problems. Enlivened by the spirit of its Immaculate Heart Community sponsors, and mindful of the Franciscan roots of its founders, Alverno’s program—academic, spiritual, aesthetic, social, and physical—is shaped by the staff, trustees, and students in light of the world for which the students are being educated. Alverno’s mission is to empower each young woman to be exactly the person she wants to be and since 1960, Alverno has empowered more than 4,100 women to meet that goal. For more information about Alverno High School, please call (626) 355-3463 or visit www.alverno-hs.org.