Wrapped in Hope: Gross Catholic High School

Happy Thursday and welcome to the first edition of our series: Wrapped in Hope. This issue features Gross Catholic High School in Omaha and their efforts towards protecting our common home.

Central to Gross Catholic’s plan is Pope Francis’s second encyclical, Laudato Si. This document is largely a reflection on the state of environmental progress and the impacts climate change has on the poorest of our communities. He famously calls everyone in the world to take “swift and unified global action.”

Here are some things Gross Catholic has completed:

1. Service projects - for the past two years, the juniors have embarked on a service project aimed to help those most in need in our community.

2. Recycling program (expanded) - Gross Catholic has worked hard to implement an orange bag recycling program and has established a consistent recycling system for the school. The orange bag program is a program designed to collect and eventually recycle hard-to-recycle materials (such as chip bags and styrofoam).

3. Spring break challenge - over spring break, a competition was set up for students to submit pictures of them completing various environmental/clean challenges and were provided with information on sustainability. These competitions included challenges such as shopping locally or recycling glass. The winner received a sustainable prize.

And here are some of their hopes for the future:

1. A garden dedicated to Mary - this garden is intended to show reverence to Mother Mary, beautify the campus, and educate students about caring for God’s creation.

2. Improvements to the recycling system - everything can always be improved, and Gross Catholic plans to continue to evaluate and implement improvements to their system in order to make it as effective as possible.

3. Teach about environment care in the classroom - taking the time to educate people about what can be reused and recycled is extraordinarily impactful and the classroom provides a great opportunity to do so.

4. Provide resources for teachers making the switch to online learning in order to incentivize the use of it.

5. Eliminate paper programs for event notifications using a website or a QR code, etc.

6. Continue to expand the Sustainable Spring Break challenge to other times of the year to promote more education and information about the environment.

As demonstrated, Gross Catholic stands as a leader in environmental protection and care. They stand at the forefront of environmental progress not only in Omaha, but in the nation. Their efforts to preserve our common home are remarkable, to say the least.

Thank you to Gross Catholic for the work you’ve done in our community for the environment and for the information they’ve provided for the creation of this article.

~ Seamus Haney