Hello from Mrs. Elsbrock’s Religion classroom!  Fourth quarter Social Justice classes are going to their service learning sites for the third time this week.  Last week when the Walnut Hills community garden group got rained out, they worked on an asset mapping activity where they mapped all of the food resources in the neighborhood to help further understand the role of the community gardens in providing fresh food to residents in the neighborhood. 

This week, the Church and Sacraments class is beginning a unit on the American Catholic Church.  As part of this unit we learn about the six Black Americans who are in the process of becoming Saints in the Catholic Church with causes for canonization:  Servant of God Sister Thea Bowman, Servant of God Julia Greeley, Venerable Pierre Toussaint, Venerable Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange, Venerable Henriette Delille, and Venerable Augustus Tolton.  All of them are in the early stages of the path to canonization, but we hope and pray that one day they will all be formally recognized for their holy lives with the official designation of being a saint.  The students will work in groups to research the lives of each of these individuals and then to write a children’s story about them.  The students also create all of their own pictures to illustrate their stories.  Later in the quarter we will go to a local Catholic grade school to read our stories.  Below are pictures from last semester when the students walked to Mercy Montessori to read their stories.