Located at Bishop Nevins Academy, 4380 Fruitville Rd., Sarasota, 941-953-4181.

Students at St. Martha Catholic School in Sarasota are smack in the middle of celebrating Catholic Schools Week 2019: Learn. Serve. Lead. Succeed. This year, the planning committee developed and implemented an international theme for the week, which includes a variety of STREAM (science, technology, religion, engineering, art and math) activities and unique educational experiences. The mission—to provide each of its 445 students with diverse opportunities to develop strength in faith, excellence in knowledge and character in service—ranging from grades Pre-K through eighth.

On Monday, the students kicked off the week an on-campus field trip with ECHO, based in Ft. Meyers, is an information hub for development practitioners around the world gathering solutions to solve hunger problems and disseminate them to their active network. These solutions promote sustainable farming techniques, nutritional plants and appropriate technologies—helping those who are teaching farmers around the world how to be more effective in producing enough to meet the needs of their families and communities. ECHO came to the campus and students received hands-on educational experience to help them become aware of the global hunger crisis. The young students also learned ways to become sustainable within our own homes and community and ultimately, learn innovative solutions to help end world hunger. Students rotated through different stations including: Worm Composting, Seed Transplanting, Scavenger Hunt, Water Filtration and a Bamboo Information Session.

On Tuesday, students participated in the Olympics, rotating through stations of field hockey, soccer, volleyball, bocce ball and croquet. Following the sports fields, they had the opportunity to tour “the world” as they visit the different regions (aka classrooms), all of which have been turned into a specific country. Students used their “passport” to record which countries they visited and learned about. Today, students will attend the Pro Kids Character Education Show with Scott Humston about the Story of the Good Samaritan. All families are invited to a school-wide picnic with their children and following the picnic, participants will create backpack bags for FELT (Feeding Empty Little Tummies). Leading up to this special give-back project, the families have been sending in donations of snacks/food to fill the bags.

Tomorrow, classes will commence to work on Catholic Schools Week STREAM Project, which involves designing a structure representative of their country to be displayed in the school. St. Martha Catholic School will also host their Annual Open House for prospective families from 8:15am–10:00am, where attendees can have a guided tour of the campus, meet teachers and students, parents and administrators. Finally, the week long activities of experiential programming will conclude on Friday with a school-wide morning Mass.

Located at Bishop Nevins Academy, 4380 Fruitville Rd., Sarasota, 941-953-4181.

Photo courtesy of St. Martha Catholic School