St. Bernadette’s celebrates its firm new foundation

Talk of solid foundations abounded at a Mass celebrating the completion of seismic upgrades at St. Bernadette’s Elementary in Surrey on Dec. 1.

Archbishop J. Michael Miller celebrated the Mass at the parish church with Father Paul Than Bui and Father Sajy Chakkittamuriyil before joining the school community at the school for a blessing of the upgraded building.

Appropriately, the Gospel was taken from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, with Father Paul reading that Jesus tells the people to build their faith on a solid foundation of rock.

Relating the Gospel to the school upgrades, the Archbishop encouraged the students to similarly build their faith on a solid foundation of thankfulness, especially to God for everything that he has given them.

St. Bernadette’s principal Michael van der Pauw gave his own expression of gratitude in a brief address before Mass, telling the gathering he was grateful for the collaborative work by the parish and school communities as well as the priests and archbishop.

He told The B.C. Catholic he was grateful for the relative lack of surprises surrounding the upgrades, which were finished on time and on budget with no major complications.

“I am told,” he joked, “that [finishing a project like this without any major complications] is quite uncommon.”

The plan to upgrade the school has been in the works since van der Pauw became principal 10 years ago. All classroom walls needed to be reinforced to get the school up to the standard set out by a seismic risk assessment study completed by the Archdiocese of Vancouver in 2013.

The bulk of the approximately $850,000 for the project came through the parish’s efforts during Project Advance.

External construction began last year during spring break and crews dug six feet down around the walls to reinforce them with rebar. Interior work commenced mid-June and the whole project wrapped up right on time on Sept. 12 and teachers and students went back to their classrooms the next day.

The school also took the opportunity to deal with some general maintenance work, fixing from minor rot on the school’s envelope, also giving the building a fresh coat of paint – two-tone blue and brown, instead of the old monotone brown colour scheme. Because of the face-lift many students and staff have also told Van der Pauw they feel like they have a whole new school building.

The paint job has also helped accentuate the school’s Catholic identity by emphasizing an existing cross-shaped architectural element above the school’s entrance. Van der Pauw said quite a few people have even asked him if the cross was there before work was done.

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