SISTERS OF MERCY CELEBRATES 125 YEARS OF SERVICE IN BELIZE

January 03, 2008

Saint Catherine Academy and the Sisters of Mercy will be celebrating one hundred and twenty five years of service to the country in areas of education, health and prison fellowship. Anniversary celebrations will start on January 20 and will run for 8 days. Director of the St. Catherine’s Alumnae Association, Sister Rose Rivero told us more about activities planned for the week.

Sister Rose Rivero,Director of the St. Catherine’s Alumnae Association:

“We’re starting with a mass and reception of the school grounds at 4pm and it’s to give thanks to God for the many years of the Sisters of Mercy coming to Belize. We have excursions to Old Belize Cultural and Historical Center and also some groups will go to the Maya Ruins in Lamanai. Whoever participates in this celebration can visit the various ministries of the sisters like the Mercy Care Center, Saint Catherine Academy and of course Muffles College which is also one of our schools. We will have displays at school depicting a little bit of the old photos and a little history of SCA and people can view that. On Wednesday, we will have a Cup of Tea which is a tradition of Catherine McCauley the founder, where you should greet guest with a comfortable cup of tea and so this has been a tradition and so we’re having a cup of tea while the high school will present some of their cultural dance and so on. We will have a night of art and music presentation by alumnae of SCA and at the same time we will be recognizing alumnae that have been nominated for outstanding alumnae.

Other activities planned for the celebrations include a parade through the streets of Belize City, a dinner dance and silent auction and the raffle of the anniversary quilt. St. Catherine Academy is also in the process of raising funds for a new multi-purpose building to address the increasing needs of an ever growing student population.

Sister Rose Rivero,Director of the St. Catherine’s Alumnae Association:

“We’ve opened an office for the Alumnae Association of SCA and we haven’t been able to take in many students because of the limited space and for many, many, many years we have only been able to take around 500 students and we’re very limited to that and every year we have a lot of kids who we don’t accept because we don’t have space and so we’re desperately in need of a new building. We don’t have an auditorium, we don’t have any cafeteria, we don’t have any place to play sports especially when it’s raining and we would like to put up a building that would accommodate this and SCA needs generous contributions of alumnae and all the businesses and some have been generous in the past so that we can make this building a reality.”

Saint Catherine’s Academy was opened in 1883; two days after the Sister’s of Mercy arrived in Belize. Sister Rose says that the celebration will start on January 20^th and will end on January 28^th with a Relleno Dinner.

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