(Left) In addition to supporting charitable causes during Catholic Schools Week, students at Holy Family School also find ways to support the community. Pictured are fifth and sixth grade students who assembled hygiene bags for Helping Hands. (Right) Holy Family Schools held a flag raising ceremony during their Vocational Day of Catholic Schools Week. (Photos from the Holy Family School Facebook page)

NORWICH — 2022 marks the 100 year anniversary of the establishment of Holy Family School, which was first known as Saint Paul's School when it was founded in 1922.

The original facility was located on the corner of North Broad and Mitchell Streets in downtown Norwich. In September of 1954, a new school building was built at 17 Prospect Street, thanks to a building campaign that raised $200,000 for construction.

The building still stands today, and in January of 1990 it was rededicated as Holy Family School by Bishop James T. O'Keefe. Currently, the school offers pre-school through sixth grade instruction.

For their centennial year, the faculty and students have been gearing up for projects and events to celebrate, some of which are already in full swing.

Catholic Schools Week

This past week, January 31 to February 4, was Catholic Schools Week, recently proclaimed by City of Norwich Mayor Brian Doliver. To mark the occasion, students and staff had the opportunity to participate in "dress down days."

"During Catholic Schools Week as well, we have dress down days for each day, and the kids get to bring in a dollar to dress down," said fifth and sixth grade teacher Raina Douglass. "The fifth and sixth graders choose a charity for each day, and we do a different color for each day based on the ribbons."

On Monday, students wore yellow for childhood cancer, to benefit Alex's Lemonade Stand. Tuesday was tie dye or rainbow day, with money going to Autism Speaks. On Wednesday, students and staff wore red, white, and blue to honor veterans, and the local Veterans Home. Thursday was scheduled as Vocational Day, where students could dress according to what they wanted to be when they grow up, and money will go to the soup kitchen at Saint Bartholomew's Catholic Church.

Friday is Mass Day for the school, so proper mass attire was required. However, students and staff still had the option to donate to the American Red Cross for Natural Disaster Relief. According to Douglass, all the charities were selected by fifth and sixth grade students.

"It’s all them. Catholic Schools Week is, the fifth and sixth graders, mostly the sixth graders, really do all the legwork on designing what we’re going to do, choosing the charities, how they want to interact with the younger kids, how they want to interact with the community. It really is all on them," she said. "They do a wonderful job of it, I'm very, very proud of them. They find a lot of joy in it."

Community involvement is nothing new to the students. Douglass said her fifth and sixth graders have been helping her gather, prepare, and distribute Christmas presents to families in need for the past three years, alongside Tiffany DeAngelo of Greater Opportunities for Chenango.

"We adopt three families, and then the students, they make a budget for each family and then make sure each child gets the same amount of gifts, and then some years we have donations from the families and the school as well," she explained. "The second grade makes ornaments, and then we use that money to make stocking stuffers for them so they have stockings as well, which is pretty amazing."

Recently, the students even assembled bags of hygiene items to be donated to Helping Hands, a charitable organization that provides needed goods to individuals in the community.

In addition to donations, students and staff also held a few events in celebration of Catholic Schools Week. On Tuesday, February 1, the school had a "Winter Walk" to highlight the history of the school.

"We had a walk, an evening walk around the school, and every little station they had pictures of, you know, the kindergarten class from 1959, and the priest back in 1940. They had little things to show the history of the school," said Holy Family Principal Thomas Sorci. "Then they had hot chocolate at the end. It was a nice little gathering last night, to just let people know we are in our centennial."

In honor of Vocational Day, the school held a "Celebrating our Nation" gathering. They invited Norwich Police Department Officer Nick Mooney, a former student at Holy Family School, Norwich Fire Department Firefighter Matt Parella, a former student, Norwich City Court Judge and current Holy Family parent Mike Genute, and Chenango County District Attorney Mike Ferrarese, a former Holy Family parent.

The gathering featured readings about the school and Catholic education, a flag raising, and the pledge of allegiance.

Capital project

Another plan on the docket for Holy Family is their gymnasium capital project. Principal Thomas Sorci said the gym will be getting a litany of upgrades, and the school is hopeful to add in some other small projects around the rest of the building as well.

"We’re resurfacing the floor and putting our new logo in the center. There’ll be new basketball backstops, fiberglass. They’ll have reconditioned bleachers, brand new paint, the bathrooms will be given a facelift, new curtains for the stage. There’ll be mats put on the wall so the kids don’t hurt themselves on the concrete," said Sorci. "Our music class is held in the gym, so we’re going to get new drums for the music students. So there’ll be little things like that, that are additional. Ropes, new ropes for the climbing. So yeah, there’s a lot of little things that are involved."

He said the R.C. Smith Foundation provided the seed money to get the project off the ground, which will allow them to start the work almost immediately.

"It’s actually going to start soon, because the painters have to come in and paint before they do the floors. So the painters are going to start over some long weekends," Sorci explained. "Hopefully they’ll have that done by Easter, and then at Easter break we have like nine days off, the flooring guys are going to come in and start their project ... Then we’ll have the bleachers reconditioned, and the bathrooms done in the summertime. So we’re going to get something started in the spring."

"Having that money from R.C. Smith really gave us the impetus to go moving forward," he added. "Otherwise we’d be waiting until we raised all the money, and that would probably be in the summertime."

Other fundraising efforts have begun as well, according to Centennial Committee Member Linda Callea. She said efforts have been spearheaded by Stephanie Boland, Tara Carnrike-Grenata, and Shauna Hyle. who have been helping with organizing the project and sending out letters to alumni, foundations, and community members asking for support and inviting them to the celebration.

The timing allows for all projects to be completed by September, just in time for the official centennial anniversary and celebration planned for the weekend of September 18, as well as the unveiling and dedication of the new gymnasium.

"Friday the 16, Aiden and Brendan Hannan have graciously offered to organize a golf tournament for us, kind of like a kick off event," said Callea. She added that other plans are not set in stone, but ideas for the evening of Saturday, September 17 have been floated. "We’d like to set up a tent kind of on that lawn area and have like a cocktail and hors d’oeuvre thing for adults in the evening after mass, then unveil the plaque and the gym."

She said she hopes the school can not only accomplish the gymnasium project, but also implement some other improvements around the building. The community has rallied around the school in the past, and Callea hopes to see that happen again this year.

"Generally we have found, for example when we were raising money for the playground, that people are pretty generous. So we think we’re going to end up with enough money to do everything we want, and maybe come out to the building a little more and do some things that are in desperate need," she said. "We’ve been really lucky this community is so generous. I think not just for our school, but everything."