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Breaking Ground on the New Student Life Center

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Nearly 700 people braved the rain and heat to celebrate an historic moment at PCA - the Student Life Center groundbreaking! Students, alumni, faculty and families joined with community leaders to put shovels in the ground for the new 44,000 square foot addition to the school campus.

The Student Life Center will provide a new tournament size gymnasium, 2 fully equipped science laboratories, 2 technology classrooms, as well as math classrooms, Bible classrooms and a collaborative student space. The new facility will support PCA's commitment to the critical study of technology and science while continuing its focus of providing students with a biblical worldview.

"This Student Life Center is going to be a place where students can spend time with each other, with their teachers, and with their youth group leaders. They will learn the important academics that they always learn, but in an environment that says this is how you apply that knowledge and how you go out and impact the culture," said PCA Headmaster JD Zubia.

The projected timeline for completion of the building would allow us to open the doors to the new Student Life Center for the 2020-2021 school year. A special thank you to Mt. Pleasant Mayor Pro Tem Gary Santos, Mount Pleasant Council Member Jim Owens, ECBC leaders and our ECBC and PCA families for celebrating with us!

We encourage you to prayerfully consider how you can help us fund the remaining $2 million needed to build this fully equipped facility which will transform the learning experience for each of our students.

Sweetgrass Baskets: A Lowcountry Treasure

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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.

Posted by Selina Zubia with

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