METAIRIE, La – One school here has a tradition.
It’s been going on now for more than ten years.
WGNO News with a Twist features guy Wild Bill Wood is on an adventure with kids who just can’t get enough of Mardi Gras.
The kids are at St. Catherine of Siena School at 400 Codifer Boulevard in Metairie, Louisiana.
And that’s where kids are arriving for school on this day with big bags.
That’s how they’re turning in their homework.
By the bag full.
That’s by the bag full unless of of course you happen to be 13-year-old Luke Couret.
Luke is a seventh grader.
He arrives at St. Catherine with a wagon full of Mardi Gras beads.
Luke says, “it was a good Mardi Gras and my technique for getting beads was to say, throw me something mister!”
Luke and the other seventh graders had a big job.
The job was unloading another successful season of leftover Mardi Gras beads.
More than beads.
These are all memories from parades past.
Lucia Torrealba, another seventh grader here says she went to eight parades this Carnival season.
Wild Bill wonders, “were you thinking about bringing the beads in while you were catching them?”
Twelve year old Lucia says, “yes because it’s for a good cause.”
The beads travel by truck across New Orleans to another school.
That school is St. Michael Special School where kids with special needs re-string the beads.
They’re recycled to another Mardi Gras for future fun.
You know the Mardi Gras mantra, let the good times roll.
Leave it to the kids from St. Catherine to turn the good times, into good deeds.