8 NOVEMBER 10 - NOVEMBER 16, 2017 BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP
OLPH Parish celebrating 125 years
BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP/Photo by Jaime DeJesus
OLPH is celebrating 125 years in the community.
OLPH school tech upgrades
BY JAIME DEJESUS
JDEJESUS@BROOKLYNREPORTER.COM
A Sunset Park school is upgrading
its way of learning
through technology.
Our Lady of Perpetual Help
(OLPH) Catholic Academy, 526 59th
Street, recently received a $168,000
grant through the Diocese of Brooklyn
to help it purchase technology.
Around $40,772 went towards
purchasing 80 Chromebooks for
students to prepare them for higher
learning.
OLPH Principal Margaret Tyndall
discussed the school’s steady shift
into technology.
“The point of it, especially for kids
in junior high, is to get them ready
for high school and in doing this,
we’re making them technologically
savvy because if you look at education
for the past couple of years,
especially in Catholic school, we’re
trying to move away from paper".
“We got the Chromebooks so that
the children will be able to learn to
do their lessons online," Tyndall continued,
"whether they’re watching a
video teaching them the different
skills in the common core in math
or ELA or writing an assignment."
One of the benefits, she said, is that
teachers, "Are able to review student
work right away and give their
comments or recommendations, and
send it back to the children and get
them to make the corrections then,
instead of marking papers, and
bringing them back in two or three
days. It’s just not working, not at this
time. We are trying to prepare them,
especially the eighth graders, for the
next level.”
According to Tyndall, the entire
program the school rolled out is
called H.O.P.E. , which stands for
Help Our Pupils Excel.
“We’re trying to get students to excel
not only in math, English and science
but also technology,” she said. “So we
brought in our STEM program as well.
It’s a huge program we have here at
OLPH and that’s just a part of it.”
So far, students have really taken
to using the Chromebooks. “It has
been very positive,” she said. “If
you’re being honest with yourself, it’s
the students that are a little ahead of
us. I think they’ve embraced this and
are very happy with what they’re
doing. You can see the difference
in their work and attitude towards
learning.”
The plan has been well received by
parents as well. “The parents are excited
about it,” Tyndall said. “They’ve
embraced it."
The school also hopes to purchase
tablets for the students in grades one
through four.
OLPH worked with CDI Computer
Dealers, which sold the school the
computers, to obtain training for
its teachers through CDI’s partner,
EdTech Team, which trains teachers
how to use the technology.
BY JAIME DEJESUS
JDEJESUS@BROOKLYNREPORTER.COM
It’s been around well over a century
and is still going strong.
For the next year, Sunset Park’s
Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish is
commemorating its 125th Jubilee Celebration
with a series of masses, events,
and parties.
The landmark anniversary means
a lot to the diverse community. On
Tuesday, September 26, the parish
celebrated International Day and recently
held a reunion of many former
members of the church.
Reverend James Gilmour stressed
the significance of the parish being
around for the community for so
many years.
“I call OLPH a village because people
so identify with it over the many
years,” he said. “It’s like the center of
their lives for worship, school, not just
grammar school but high school and
the sports. There have been all different
kinds of activities so it’s been the
center of so many people’s lives, the
center of family life. People are born,
they grow up, they get married, they
bring their children and become part
of the community with weddings and
funerals. Those are all very special
moment in people’s lives.”
Gilmour said that the church has
stood the test of time. “I think because
it’s such a big place, it’s really been a
gathering place for so many activities
over the years and it’s always been an
immigrant community,” he said. “It continues
to be a very vibrant immigrant
community in Sunset Park. Our largest
community is the Hispanic community.
Also we have a very active and growing
Chinese Catholic community.
“The old parishioners also, their
children and grandchildren are in
the parish,” Gilmour continued. “We
have a Vietnamese community also
so it’s very much part of our identity
as an immigrant community. We
bring all the groups together. It’s not
parallel communities within the same
building. We come together as one
worshipping community.”
Gilmour discussed the celebrations
the parish has hosted beginning in
September that included a mass and a
party. The mass was in four languages
and flags from all the countries that
are represented in the community
were displayed.
There was also a fiesta at the school
gym that included folk dances from
several of the different communities,
like Irish, Hispanic and Asian.
In addition, a reunion was held on
Saturday, October 28.
“We invited people who used to be in
the parish community but moved away,”
he said. "It was a mass and dinner dance
and a wonderful gathering of people
who hadn’t seen each other for so many
years, so people were catching up. It’s
like they were meeting their neighbors
from around the neighborhood all
over again, remembering old times. A
lot of phone numbers and emails were
exchanged so they could be in contact
once again with old friends.”
The anniversary events have just
begun as the parish plans to hold
several events, such as a celebration
for couples who got married in the
church and a block party next summer.
The commemoration will end with a
big celebration with the bishop in
September, 2018.
“There has never been a lull,” Gilmour
said. “This has always been an
active parish and I think the changes
in the neighborhood have been difficult
but the parish community has
known how to navigate through the
difficulties that come with change
and preparation and demographics.
Our faith gives us opportunity to help
even in midst of difficult things.”
BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP/Photo by Jaime DeJesus
OLPH Catholic Academy.