Annual Madeleine Choir School event draws grandparents from out of state

Intermountain Catholic

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As part of the entertainment at the annual Grandparent's Day Madeleine Choir School, first-graders sang a song about being too loud.

SALT LAKE CITY - From an opening thank-you prayer by second-grade students to the closing performance by the choir, students at The Madeleine Choir School expressed their thanks from the stage during the annual Grandparents’ Day Brunch.

The school’s cafeteria was packed with grandparents, honorary grandparents, school volunteers and special friends on Oct. 22 as each grade performed for the audience.

The event, which was started in 1996, is a tradition at the school. The first year the school was open, the Grandparents’ Day celebration was a lunch held in the basement of the Cathedral of the Madeleine. It’s now grown so that even the school’s cafeteria was filled with those being honored.

The day "is our way of saying thanks for all that they do for us," said Principal Christina Vierra McGill.

Ellen Hanish travels from Arizona each year to attend the event. She has three grandchildren at the school, and seeing them on stage is one of the highlights of her visit, she said. "I wouldn’t miss it for the world, and I think the kids would be disappointed if I didn’t come."

She also enjoys the fellowship of the other grandparents.

A number of the grandparents came from out of state, as well as one from Alberta, Canada.

The school focuses on the preservation of the Catholic Church’s liturgical music, and the event "is a great way to let them (the grandparents) see what we do," said Joanna R. Wheelton, the school’s director of advancement. Many of the visitors return year after year, she added. "It becomes a special memory and they just keep coming back.