Contact: Jenni Brockman
Telephone: 804-443-3357
Fax: 804-443-6781
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
St. Margaret's Students Share Holidays With Community
Tappahannock, VA (December 24, 2000) - Before they left for Christmas vacation - and homes from Tappahannock to Toyko - St. Margaret's students shared their holiday celebrations with the community. Choral performances and community service projects were just a few of the ways that girls reached beyond the school's Water Lane campus.
These are just a few of the Christmas stockings that St. Margaret's students spent their own allowances to fill. The Salvation Army will distribute the stockings to local children.
In early December, the SMS Treble Choir sang for the XYZ Club of the Tappahannock Methodist Church and the SMS Ensemble performed for the Episcopal Church Women of St. John's Church in Tappahannock. The highlight of the XYZ performance came when students presented club officers with a large decorated container full of the change they had collected, which will be donated to local organizations.
The Treble Choir also was among a select few school musical groups chosen from around the state to sing at an open house at the Governor's Mansion in Richmond. After its performance, said director Beverley Gordon, the choir was invited "on the spot" to perform again next year. Both choral groups, along with a faculty/staff chorus and the new SMS instrumental ensemble, participated in the school's traditional service of Advent Lessons and Carols, which was open to the St. John's congregation.
SMS students shared the Christmas spirit by digging into their closets, too. Girls donated a vanful of clean, nearly-new, brand-name jackets, jeans and sweaters to area families who need warm winter clothes. And they didn't stop there - students rang the bell at Wal-Mart for the Salvation Army and spent their own money to fill more than 30 stockings with games, toys and other presents.
The Christmas season will continue when students return to school, for as Chaplain and Acting Head Ann Riggs is quick to point out, it begins on December 25 and ends 12 days later, on Epiphany. Girls will gather for a Christmas Eucharist on the first day of classes, and end the season with the school's annual semi-formal "Snow Ball."
