News

Sweetgrass Baskets: A Lowcountry Treasure

When transported to Charleston during the seventeenth century, Africans from the west coast of Africa brought with them a skill, now unique to the Lowcountry, that is still practiced today...the art of making sweetgrass baskets. Angela Stoneworth, mother of PCA graduate Kaila and Lena (9th), graciously took the time to share her talent and the history of sweetgrass basket-making with our 3rd grade students.

At the age of five, Angela began learning from her grandmother the art of weaving baskets making Angela a 9th generation basket weaver. That makes her daughters 10th generation basket weavers! Angela explained that the baskets were originally used for winnowing rice and have since become decorative items. However, because of how well they are made, sweetgrass baskets can be used for storage and serving dry food items and can last up to eighty years. She explained to the students that besides using sweetgrass (which is becoming more difficult to find) and pine straw to make baskets, bulrush is also used. Yes, the same grass Miriam used to make Moses' basket. How cool is that!

Not only did Angela learn a profitable skill from her grandmother, she learned the importance of forgiveness. When her grandmother's basket stand was robbed of its contents, Angela couldn't understand why her grandmother wasn't angry. After all, weaving baskets is very time-consuming, hard work, and was the family's livelihood. When Angela asked about seeking retribution, her grandmother replied, "No, I am just going to pray for them and ask God to have mercy on them." Words of wisdom that Angela abides by and shares with others.

The students clearly enjoyed Angela's presentation and were even able to try weaving a bit themselves. Angela and her husband, Darryl, own DNA Baskets. Their beautiful baskets and other unique sweetgrass items can be seen at dnabaskets.com or at their Market stand downtown across from the Haagen-Dazs ice cream store.

Thank you Angela for blessing PCA students with your talent and Spirit-filled wisdom.

Making An Impact! PCA's New Student Led Chapels For Upper School

Meet Impact, PCA's new upper school chapel concept, which is a student-led team who plans and leads each chapel, and most importantly helps spread God's love and joy to the student body. Quinn Disrud, Bible teacher, and Kathy Thames, choir director, worked together on creating the team and act as mentors and advisors to the strong, dedicated students with the ultimate goal - to make an impact. The team meets Mondays at lunch to go over the weekly plan, decide on worship songs, discuss potential speakers, and more.

Olivia Martin, singer and pianist, describes her goal for Impact by saying, "This year, being a part of the Impact team I want to accomplish what it means to not only worship God by singing songs but worship him in every aspect of my life. I hoep that I can grow in being a part of a team and what it means to help lead others in worship!" The hope is that students become emboldened in their faith and walk with the Lord.  Along with the re-introduction of student-led worship, the Impact schedule will add small groups every other week beginning on September 11. 

The goal of small groups will be for students to challenge, sharpen, encourage, and compel one another to keep pursuing Christ.  The journey itself is intended to be communal. As students become captivated by Jesus they immediately get immersed in a community of peers who are on a similar journey. The direction of the journey will lead them to become students who have encountered God's love so much that PCA becomes filled with transformed people - people shaped by love. 

"I think my peers are really glad that we have brought the music back to Impact. I think it makes a big difference; we have a lot of improvement with this being the first year, and us figuring things out along the way. We are working very hard to make Impact as awesome and beneficial as possible," describes Gracie Kammer, planning team coordinator, as she highlights the excitement of the student body and the work put into each Impact by the team.  The team is excited to have a key role in the spiritual life at PCA and to unify the student body through faith!