Chilean students serve the Dallas Community

Last Thursday, our guests had the opportunity to participate in a long-standing Ursuline Dallas service tradition called "Supper Club." Regularly (usually once a month), Ursuline Dallas students make and serve supper for the very appreciative residents of The Hillcrest House. The Hillcrest House is part of the AIDS services of Dallas rental program. Residents of the Hillcrest house are people living with HIV/ AIDS and have often been homeless or are mentally challenged. Sometimes the residents are senior citizens or are recent immigrants. The residents enjoy visiting with our Ursuline students and they tell us that they know that they will have a good meal when they see the plaid skirts working in the kitchen!

So, on Thursday evening, our guests went to the Hillcrest House along with our UA teachers, Ms. Bolling and Ms. Miller and with one of our most dedicated Ursuline seniors whose plaid skirt alerted the residents to the connection between the girls in plaid and these new smiling girls in navy jumpers.

The delegation from Chile had a great time serving dinner and chatting with the residents who asked them all about Chile and about the recent rescue of the Chilean miners. The residents were so charmed by the girls that they made up a song and sang it to them as a thank you! It was a wonderful evening in the true cheerful spirit of Serviam.

Prom Night in Mississippi-THEATRICAL TRAILER

Please enjoy the movie trailer from Prom Night in Mississippi, the film which we discussed tonight at DADYO (see details in our previous blog entry). We hope you'll take the time to view the entire film!

DADYO meets at UA for Prom Night in Mississippi

What a stellar turn-out we had this evening at UA for our DADYO (Dallas Area Diversity Youth Organization) meeting! In addition to hosting our sisters from Chile (who now have LOTS of new Facebook friends), we were thrilled to be joined by our friends from other local independent schools including ESD, Greenhill, Parish, Jesuit, St. Marks and Hockaday. In fact, we had over 125 students present!!

Our evening began with a fiesta quesadilla dinner in Haggar Center for the whole community (served beautifully by our UA dream team). Then, we came together in the KIVA to view Morgan Freeman's award-winning Documentary, Prom Night in Mississippi. This documentary focuses on a small Mississippi town which has maintained the tradition of having separate high school proms, one for black students and one for white students - and what happens when the seniors decide to have an integrated Prom for the first time, courtesy of Morgan Freeman. Our discussion afterward was led by our UA students and they made us very proud in the way that they explored the documentary themes of opportunity, change, fear, love, tradition and more.

Many thanks to all of the students and educators who attended our DADYO meeting and who helped make tonight a fantastic evening of learning and sharing!

Our Chilean Sisters Out & About in Dallas ...

The last two days have been most eventful for our Chilean guests. As you will recall, they enjoyed a uniquely American experience yesterday at the Hard Rock Cafe. And today, they visited the beautiful Meadows Museum at SMU (Southern Methodist University) which houses the finest collection of Spanish art outside of Spain. They enjoyed their time at the museum with Mrs. Escamilla as their personal docent. An added bonus to the visit was a tour of SMU given by our dear Ursuline alum and current SMU student, Ingrid Castillo. She and our own college counselor, Ms. Estes, shared lots of information with the girls about SMU and about colleges in the USA.

After such an active morning, all were very hungry and ready for a fabulous Italian feast at Campisi's restaurant - a Dallas favorite! In these photos, you see our guests on the move, having fun at the Hard Rock and enjoying lunch with Ingrid. Tomorrow they will be back in class and will also go on an evening service project - another busy and exciting day!!

Downtown Dallas Visit

After two full days in classes at UA, our guests were ready to go out for a learning excursion today! Our Chilean friends enjoyed their chilly but fun-filled visit to Downtown Dallas. First, they were officially welcomed by the City of Dallas at Dallas City Hall. They toured City Hall where highlights were visiting the Flag Room (note the displayed Chilean flag in the photo - that's NOT the Texas flag!) as well as the room where the Dallas City Council meets and makes important decisions about the governance of our city. We'd like to send a special Thank You to our friends in the office of Dallas Protocol for welcoming our Chilean sisters so warmly (and also for the fabulous photos)!

After the visit to City Hall and after the official "Mr. Smith" security tour of Downtown Dallas, everyone was ready for an authentic American lunch. And what better place for that experience than the Hard Rock Cafe? Along with the rock and roll music of the 50's, 60's and beyond, our group enjoyed lots of hamburgers, chicken strips and brownie sundaes!

The last stop of the day was the Dallas World Aquarium where our guests thawed out from the Dallas cold weather and pretended that they were in a tropical rain forest.

A big thanks to Mr. Smith, Ms. Alexander and Ms. Vander Linden for joining our guests on this awesome day of discovery and adventure!!

Bienvenidas Amigas Chilenas!

Today was the culmination of a dream that we have had at Ursuline Dallas for five years! Yes, for the first time, students from Colegio Santa Ursula in Chile have come to visit us! We were thrilled to welcome our sister school guests, including two educators, our friends Andrea and Soledad. The group arrived at 6 am and was full of energy all day - until they weren't! Hopefully all are resting well tonight and will be ready for their first full day of classes tomorrow.

!Bienvenidas!

UA prepares for Chilean guests!

It's a new year full of excitement and new possibilities! Even before classes resume, our GAGAs(Girls Assisting Global Awareness) have been hard at work preparing for our upcoming delegation visit from our sister-school, Colegio Santa Ursula, in Chile. On Thursday morning, we will welcome 8 students and 2 educators from Santiago, Chile. Yesterday we met with the very excited Host Families and today we worked on the hospitality room. Thursday can't come soon enough!!