On October 13, 2012, as one of our many celebrations  commemorating  the 125^th Anniversary of St. Anne & St. Patrick Parish and Shrine, the parents and children in our Religious Education program in grades K-5 were invited to take part in a” Scavenger Hunt” on the Shrine Grounds.  Many of our children and their parents had never visited the Shrine grounds and we felt this was the perfect opportunity to “explore and discover” this very beautiful and holy place.

The parents, teachers and children met in St. Joachim Parish Center for a brief video presentation of the history of the parishes of St. Anne and St. Patrick and of St. Anne Shrine.    They were then each given a “Passport” containing clues on each page which would guide them to different locations on the Shrine Grounds.  Each page, along with the clues, contained one or two questions which they were to answer when they reached each destination.  Once they answered correctly, our teenagers, who had volunteered to be at each “destination stamped their passport on the corresponding  page, and sent them on their way to their next destination.

After visiting all the destinations in the “Passport”, they returned to St. Joachim Parish Center for refreshments and shared their adventures of these holy grounds.  This event was so successful, that many parents asked that the Scavenger Hunt be repeated in the Spring.

This exercise not only proved successful in familiarizing everyone with the beautiful grounds at St. Anne Shrine, hopefully giving them the desire to visit this holy place often,  but also helped to bring parish families and children together for an afternoon of fun and education and community building.