Christmas is a time when family and friends come from far and wide to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. So, too, has the great Providence family reunited at PA’s Twentieth Anniversary Alumni Christmas Party. On Wednesday, December 22, 2021, the school was packed with over two hundred alumni, laughter, and trips down memory lane.
The evening was vibrant with festive Christmas music, beverages donated by alumni parent Mr. Michael Maglich, tours of the Performing Arts Center and a cigar patio with a bonfire. The party also featured various blasts from Providence’s past, including PA lunch-inspired hors d’oeuvres crafted by Chef Marshall Morris, as well as yearbooks and photographs from the past twenty years. And while there was much catching up between former classmates, many alumni also came to visit some other special people.
“I decided it was time to come back and see the teachers,” alumna Mory Jaberian ‘14 shared.
Not only were current faculty present but, for the first time, beloved former faculty members came as well. This year, PA had the honor of hosting Dr. Bernard Carpenter, Mr. and Mrs. William and Beth Lasseter, Mrs. Jo Anne Wolkerstorfer, and Dr. Bill Stevenson.
Another notable first was the presence of alumni from every graduating class from 2005 to 2021. Those who graduated between 2012 and 2021 spent the evening in the Great Room while the earlier and smaller graduating classes of 2005 to 2011 started out in the more intimate lobby before joining the others in the Great Room. And there was no shortage of enjoyment for the rest of the night.
“It’s important that PA holds events like this because there are a lot of people from my graduating class that I wouldn’t have reached out to individually,” alumna Kiara Monette ‘18 explained. “It was really nice to catch up with them and see where my classmates were near the end of their college careers.”
And while much has changed over the past two decades, many alumni attested to how much Providence’s core has stayed the same.
“It seems to me Providence is growing, but not changing,” alumna and PA’s former Coordinator of Campus Ministry and Communications Katie Lahti ‘06 reflected. “New students, new facilities, new awards and art on the walls, new programs, new traditions, more alumni, and the same PA.”
Above all, the Alumni Party honored those in the Providence family for whom the yellow walls have become a foundation.
Director of College Counseling and Alumni Engagement Mrs. Sarah Hogan explained, “Our alumni are critically important to the school not simply because they represent the outcomes of education and what faith, knowledge, and virtue provide for a graduate, but because they exemplify what fulfilling your vocation in life, when you have the education here, looks like.”
Besides being a wonderfully fun-filled night, the annual Alumni Party is proof that, upon graduation, Providence students leave with much more than a diploma.
