The school has done several activities to mark this anniversary.

“We developed a new, beautiful logo, with the tag line ‘From here to a just world,’ ” said Nina Beresfold, president of St. Bon’s. “We (held) our anniversary Mass at the Basilica at the opening of school. We have banners placed at the top of our school.”

Ryan Hayward, an alumnus of the school who continues to do computer and web site related work, described the 10th anniversary logo.

“There’s an omega, which symbolizes God being the beginning and the end, alpha and omega,” said Hayward. “It looks like the Saviour, with His arms spread across the cross, as well as perhaps a teacher or a parent about to embrace you with a hug. It also looks like a book with pages in the wind.”

St. Bon’s has good reason to celebrate. Despite the absence of any provincial support, the school has become the frontrunner in almost every area of school achievement, including academia, sports, music and religious education.

To illustrate this point, Christian Brother Joseph Darcy, who has been associated with the school for several decades, explains, “There was an essay competition for the high schools of the province and there were 24 or more prizes. St. Bon’s won almost all of them. So much so that when the awards were being given out, they were asked not to wear their uniforms so they wouldn’t be too conspicuous.”

St. Bon’s has won numerous local, national and international music awards, hosts a Hockey Canada Skills Academy and receives some of the highest average grades of any school.

Darcy, who was educated at St. Bon’s beginning in 1925 and also spent 11 years teaching there (including four as President), believes having a spiritual basis to education is essential. When asked how he feels about the province’s secular school system, he does not mince words

“It has been disastrous,” he said. “For (those not attending St. Bon’s), they can’t get any spiritual basis for their life. What’s the meaning of life, what we’re here for? How do we go about it? That can’t be dealt with properly in the other schools.”

The school, which operates in the Jesuit tradition, teaches more than math and science. It teaches solidarity. When asked to sum up St. Bon’s in one word, Hayward says “family.” He goes on to say that students “feel at home here. It’s not just the school, it’s your school.”

This feeling of family extends to the community at large. Students participate in a variety of community activities, such as writing letters to veterans and current soldiers, preparing food hampers during Easter and Christmas, sending cards to the elderly during special occasions, even starting a web site called achildisachild.com which advocates for children in certain countries who are given adult criminal sentences including the death penalty.

Another major project by the students is the Community Gardens.

“Last year the senior students built a garden here on our campus,” said Beresford. “The vegetables that are grown in the gardens are then collected and are given to either the Gathering Place or Emmaus House, which are food shelters.”

(Lynch, 27, works in marketing and web site maintenance in St. John’s, Nfld.)