NEW ORLEANS — A docudrama on the life of Mother Cabrini opened in theaters Friday. Some of the Cabrini High School family got a special sneak peek of the movie Thursday night. The school is the former orphanage where Mother Cabrini lived.
There is a sense of pride at Cabrini High School today, now that the docudrama about the life of Maria Francesca Cabrini, who became Frances Xavier Cabrini, is out.
“The girls of Cabrini High School are really heirs to a beautiful legacy, a very rich inheritance. The first American to become a saint, was Frances Cabrini,” said Sheri Salvagio, Cabrini President and CEO.
Mother Cabrini walked the school grounds. After her orphanage in the French Quarter was over capacity with children who lost their parents to the yellow fever epidemic, she had it built on Bayou St. John, where the school now stands. Her bedroom still is intact. A small museum occupies another room with checks she wrote, the clothes she wore on her tiny frame, and the girls take classes in rooms that once gave children a safe home, and hope.
“She established 67 schools orphanages, and hospitals. Columbus hospital in New York, Columbus hospital in Chicago, that was Cabrini. She did that,” explained Salvagio.
And she did it all in 30 years, as a small, sickly, and frail, facing discrimination as a woman, and an Italian immigrant, facing intentional resistance from power, and political people in the late1800s, and early 1900s. The principal saw the movie Thursday night.
“It was amazing, inspiring, jolting, because of some of the violence, and the conditions that you would see in the time period,” said Yvonne Hrapmann, Cabrini Principal.
“Oh, the movie's phenomenal. It's just the story of a woman who did not stop. She overcame tremendous adversity with grace and dignity,” said Salvagio.
The student body president's mom saw it too.
‘“Coco, like it's so exciting like you need to like,’ and they were trying to tell me like all these things. I said, ‘Stop telling me that. I don't want it to get spoiled. I want to like go with all my friends,’” said Cabrini Student Body President, Senior, Coco Harris, 17.
Coco will get to see the movie on St. Joseph's Day, when the entire school will go together, and then have sessions to talk about what they can learn from Mother Cabrini's accomplishments.
“So, I just feel like Mother Cabrini is just special to every student here because she's such a role model, said Harris.
“The maternal love that she showed for those emarginated, and the hope she gave those people that had nothing to be hopeful about,” said Hrapmann.
And that’s a message that is still timeless today.
Cabrini High School invites schools, and groups to sign up to tour the museum on the school grounds dedicated to Mother Cabrini.
Here’s more their gala fundraiser Saturday night, and the upcoming St. Joseph's Altar.
- Cabrini Legacy Gala
- Saturday
- Patron Party 6-7 p.m.
- Gala 7-10 p.m.
- Music by the Wise Guys
- Silent Auction
- St, Joseph’s Altar
- 3400 Esplanade Ave.
- March 16 9:30am-5:30 p.m.
- Match 17 9:30am-3:30 p.m.
- Lunch at noon
- Open to the Public
- Walk in the Steps of Mother Cabrini
- Tour: Hannah Hess
- 504-483-8665
- 504-482-1193
- hhess@cabrinihigh.com
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