Thanksgiving is known as the holiday for getting together with family, eating a huge dinner, and watching football, but in the St. Stephen’s & St. Agnes community, many students know this time of year as Saintsgiving. A time to remind students to give thanks for friends, family, and appreciate the good things in life.
For St. Stephen’s & St. Agnes School, Thanksgiving is a special time, where the entire school comes together for an all-school chapel service. This has become a tradition within the community and has been going on consistently since the school was founded. It is believed that almost every year since the first year St. Agnes School was founded, the school has celebrated the Thanksgiving season by holding a chapel service. Then in 1944, when St. Stephens School was founded; it is believed that they also held a Thanksgiving chapel service.
There are many traditions within the Thanksgiving service. One of the main ones being the Senior class giving the Kindergarten class their school pin. It started in 1991 when St. Stephen’s School and St. Agnes School merged. This tradition demonstrates the connection between all three campuses by having the older students welcome the younger students into the community, showing the unification of all the students under St. Stephen’s & St. Agnes School.
In an interview with Mrs. Adams, the head of school, she was asked about her favorite traditions, and stated “One of my favorite parts is the litany, which is where you all say we’re grateful for whatever it might be…, the three year olds are grateful for their stuffies and the seniors are grateful for their college counselors. That I think is a moment where we just talk about gratitude, which is a really important part of our Episcopal identity.”
The Episcopal identity ties into the other aspects of the Saintsgiving season. While most of our community is fortunate to afford the basic necessities, there are others within the Alexandria community that struggle to do these things. All year round St. Stephen’s & St. Agnes school partners with organizations to help the larger community, but especially around Thanksgiving season there are a lot of opportunities for students and families to give back.
Saintsgiving Day is a long running tradition during the Thanksgiving season. It takes place the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and has been the primary way in which students and families have given back to the community through the school during the holiday season. Saintsgiving started as a massive sandwich making operation, making sandwiches for Martha’s Table, but around 2017, the school transitioned from making sandwiches to offering a number of different opportunities for students and families to participate in.
At the Lower School, there is a candy drive where students can donate leftover candy from Halloween. The candy will be packaged into holiday treat bags and donated to Grace Episcopal’s Food Pantry. There are also food drives at the Lower School, where students can bring in canned food or other necessities like cooking oil to be put into blessing bags. These bags are donated to ALIVE, a long-standing community partner for the school and one of the largest nonprofits dedicated to fighting poverty and hunger in Alexandria. For the Upper School, there are opportunities that include packing the blessing bags, and also helping to distribute around 500 meals to the families that are served by the Mother of Light Center, another Alexandria non-profit dedicated to supporting families in need.
When asked about why service is a big part of our schools identity, Mrs. Adams says “The service part is really about recognizing that you’re part of a bigger community, and that’s so aligned with our Episcopal identity, because our Episcopal identity talks about honoring every person as a child of God, and it makes sure we’re helping to honor those around us. Who might we have blessings that we can share, and their blessings we get in return from them.”
Whether in the camaraderie of a normal school day, giving back to the greater community through service, or just cherishing those moments when our students in JK-12 can connect through long standing traditions, it is clear that community is at the heart of St. Stephen’s & St. Agnes School, and that is something to be thankful for!
