Advent School Celebrates 50th with Tree Planting in Public Garden

Advent School students and faculty at the tree-planting ceremony on the Public Garden. (Photo courtesy of Marilyn Humphries)

The Advent School planted a Princeton Elm tree in the Public Garden Wednesday to commemorate the opening of the school 50 years ago.

The event marked the golden anniversary of the first school day – Sept. 14, 1961 – and included 213 first- through six-graders, faculty members, and representatives of the non-profit Friends of the Public Garden, which helped facilitate the planting.

“At The Advent School our mission is to help connect children to their city and bring them closer to their natural environment,” Advent Head of School Nancy Harris Frohlich said. “Every chance we have to take children into the Public Garden or along the Esplanade, we help them to appreciate the beauty and serenity of nature.  As caretakers of our planet, we could think of nothing more important, in our 50th birthday year, than to give a gift of nature to the children and families of Boston.”

When asked, “What are the most important values you have learned at The Advent School,” sixth-grader Sloane Hauck said, “While I’ve been at Advent I’ve have learned to be a friend and how to be a good sport.  But most important I learned how to be kind, compassionate, a hard worker and myself.”

In response to the same question, Hauck’s classmate, Nicholas Grassi, said,

“One of the most important values I learned at Advent is knowing what’s happening outside the country. I think that is a great quality of the

school.”

Fellow sixth-graders Mathilda Bates and Armando Hazaveh also spoke on their positive experiences as students at the school.

Meanwhile, music instructor Rebecca Fiarman led students and faculty in a school-wide performance of Ben E. King’s 1961 R&B classic “Stand By Me.”