Mardi Gras Fest Brings Local Traditions to Great Hearts Harveston

It was a full and festive day at Great Hearts Harveston in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where the campus celebrated Great Hearts Day and the rich culture and history of Mardi Gras season with a parade and festivities.

“Having both Great Hearts Day and our Mardi Gras parade on the same day is a perfect reminder of the way our mission leads to celebration. The work of cultivating the minds and hearts of students through the pursuit of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty is a deeply meaningful reason to celebrate together, and I’m thankful our students will see us embodying those things at the same time,” explained Julie Harris, Head of the Lower School.

Great Hearts Day provided the students an opportunity to learn about, discuss, and celebrate the virtues of great-hearted humans, especially the virtue of Friendship. Friendship (Greek philia), is one of the four types of love C.S. Lewis explores in his work The Four Loves, and it is the one he argues is the rarest, most profound, and least necessary form of love:

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art. It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.” – C.S. Lewis

In addition to the class celebrations of friendship, the campus also hosted its third annual Mardi Gras Fest. The festivities are closely associated with New Orleans but are also enthusiastically observed across southern Louisiana. The term “Mardi Gras” translates to “Fat Tuesday” in French, marking the tradition of indulging in rich, fatty foods on the eve of Lent, a period of fasting. The season kicks off on King’s Day, January 6, and culminates at midnight before Ash Wednesday. In the final week of Mardi Gras, a plethora of events take place that feature vibrant parades and glamorous masquerade balls.

Parents were invited to enjoy a display of their scholars’ shoebox floats, traditional and elaborately decorated “parade floats” constructed out of shoeboxes and created to mimic full size Mardi Gras floats but constructed on a miniature scale by the students. They brought chairs and sat around the parameter of the back parking lot as students marched in a parade formation for them. The parade was complete with banners, colorful masks, and the traditional throwing of beads and candy to onlookers.

The Upper School enjoyed refreshments along with the tradition of the King Cake, an iconic, braided, oval-shaped brioche pastry, traditionally enjoyed during the Carnival season. Decorated with icing and purple, green, and gold sugar, it usually contains a small plastic baby representing good luck and prosperity to the finder.

Great Hearts Day in combination with the third annual Mardi Gras Fest at Great Hearts Harveston brought together students, parents, and teachers in a celebration that beautifully blended learning and tradition. And as they say in Louisiana, “Laissez les bons temps rouler,” a timeless regional motto meaning, “Let the good times roll!”

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