My love for Catholic schools

My name is Isabella Smith and I have gone to St. Ambrose school for four years. I am a sixth-grader. I have four siblings, and three of them have gone to St. Ambrose school with me. Next year, I am going to Catholic Central High School. I really love going to a Catholic school for many reasons. 

One thing that I love about going to Catholic school is teaching other kids about God during the school day. We help the younger students when we do religion projects and teach them about God. Some of the projects that we have done with the younger students are teaching them about the Holy Trinity, Lent, Jesus, and how He died on the cross for us. I also love going to Catholic school because I get to go to Mass during the school day every month. I love going to Mass and learning new things about God. 

I also love going to Mass to serve by reading and bringing up the gifts to the priest and the deacon.

Another advantage of going to a Catholic school is acting out the Stations of Cross and performing in the Passion Play. My part in the Passion Play was Veronica, the woman who wiped the face of Jesus. My other part was one of the weeping woman who was sad for Jesus. The Passion Play was open to everyone to come and pray with us as we reenacted it. 

I also really love reading the Bible, having Father (Brian) Kelly’s dog, Hailey, come and visit with us during the day, and wearing uniforms. Wearing uniforms is great because it takes less time to figure out what you are wearing. Another thing that I love about wearing uniforms it that it makes everyone look and feel equal. 

St. Ambrose has some really fun clubs that allow you to do things that you love. Some of the clubs that I am in this year are yearbook, art club, chorus, soccer, volleyball and cross-country. My favorite club that I was in was cross-country. 

Being part of a Catholic school community also means that we can do fundraisers to support different causes. For example, we sold bracelets to support juvenile diabetes research, and we did a bake sale for two different causes. One was for Water for South Sudan and the other one was for St. Baldrick’s cancer research. We also filled rice bowls that support children that need food, water, clothing and shelter. The final thing that we raised money for was to support the sixth-graders’ field trip so we could have one last trip together. We had a Trash-to-Treasure sale, where the community brought in gently-used items and we sold them. We also held a bake sale to support our field trip. 

The last thing I love about being in a Catholic school are the people. Everyone in our school is very encouraging and they encourage us to talk about our feelings. Our teachers are very nice and kind. They teach us a lot in school and help us so we are prepared for our future. St. Ambrose school is a amazing place to go to school and going to Catholic school is one of my favorite things about life. I think everyone around should go to a Catholic school and learn the importance of life.

Isabella Smith is a sixth-grade student at Saint Ambrose School in Latham.  She is an exceptional student, who participates in numerous clubs after school.