Category: Top Stories

Congratulations the newest members of the Holy Cross School Alumni Association!

Ten eighth grade students graduated on Wednesday evening, June 14. Congratulations are in order as well for Ms. Rosalie Doherty, the principal of Holy Cross School; the students’ teachers; and their parents and guardians, all of whom have shepherded our students on their way to this happy conclusion of their elementary school years.

In January 2022 the Philadelphia Water Department (PWD) awarded Holy Cross Parish a Stormwater Management Improvement Grant (SMIP) in the amount of $464,231!  This grant award will fund improvements to manage the stormwater runoff from the buildings and hard surfaces of the Holy Cross Campus

A little History about our Grant Award

This journey begins in 2018 with the award of another grant from the Community Design Collaborative (CDC) of Philadelphia to Holy Cross.  In 2019 we conducted 3 meetings to gather input from over 40 members and neighbors of Holy Cross along with Holy Cross school students, teachers and staff from Independent Mission Schools (IMS).  In 2020, our CDC design team completed the conceptual design plan for the Holy Cross Campus entitled “Conceptual Design for a Campus Sustainability Master Plan”.

One of the many improvements conceptualized in the sustainability master plan was the design of stormwater management projects with the following goals:

• Maximize our stormwater capture onsite to benefit our natural environment and help to relieve current area flooding conditions
• Decrease our stormwater management charges by up to 80%. (Current charges = $933/Month)
• Improve and increase our campus green space for the benefit and beauty of the community and the school children
• Provide ongoing education and a living classroom to the school children and community on the benefits of Green Stormwater Infrastructure (GSI)
• Provide the impetus and support for future improvements to the Holy Cross Campus

Going Forward with the PWD Grant

The grant requires meeting ongoing levels of performance and deadlines.  Holy Cross parishioner Tom Halliwell wrote the grant application for Holy Cross in September of 2021.  Tom will be both grant manager and project manager for Holy Cross.  We still have hoops to jump and deadlines to make as we meet the requirements of the grant.  Preliminary testing and site engineering and landscape planning will continue through 2022 and our projected schedule for construction to begin is June 2023.

With the exception of multiple rain gardens most of the final construction will be underground drainage beds and piping.

Our grant writing team at Holy Cross is dedicated to finding grant money which will minimize the overall project costs to Holy Cross in the future.  Congratulations to all who participated in and supported the planning process and we look forward to your involvement as we move forward.

 

Prepared by: Steve Monheim on 02/08/2022