WelCom August 2024
Katrina Kerr-Bell, Principal
At 6am on Saturday 20 July, Sacred Heart College Lower Hutt school community gathered at dawn to celebrate the opening of our new Mission House and the blessing of the kaitiaki gifted by Mana Whenua.
This moment marked not just the completion of an important project for the college, but a continuation of a cherished legacy and the beginning of a new chapter in our community’s story.
A special thanks to Mana Whenua Te Āti Awa ki te Ūpoko o te Ika and Wiremu Moeahu for the generous gift of the kaitiaki ‘Te Iho o te Manawa’ | ‘The Beating Heart’. It is such a beautiful and treasured taonga.
The kaitiaki at our front entrance has enabled us to transform this new space to a project that reflects the land it rests on and the young wāhine of Te Ati Awa, whom the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions came to serve.
The day began with a blessing of the kaitiaki, then Archbishop Paul Martin sm blessed the entire building. We all followed Archbishop Paul and prayed in each space.
The morning concluded with kai, after which tours of the building were conducted throughout the morning.
The new Mission House was built on the site of the original Mission House at Sacred Heart, which had been the Sisters’ convent. In 1972, due to the college’s rapid growth, Mission House became dual-purposed as home to the Sisters and as well as containing the administration block and six classrooms.
In 2017 this building was deemed unsafe in the case of an earthquake. The costs for strengthening it were prohibitive, so the difficult decision was made by the then Mission Colleges Lower Hutt Trust Board to take it down and build a new Mission House.
IR Group and Maycroft Builders with Robinson Architects have created a beautiful new Mission House. This is home to our college’s administration team, business manager, senior leadership personnel, a library, a staffroom, and four classrooms as well as numerous other offices and staff workrooms.
We are so proud of what has been created for us and we are especially proud that one of the architects involved with the project, Hannah Kelly, is one of our own alumni.
Sacred Heart College is grateful to the Mission College’s Lower Hutt Trust Board for their bravery, vision and dedication to this build. And a special thanks was given to Bill Davies who was a driving force behind the funding of this build.
This is the first stage completion of the new refurbishment of Sacred Heart. Stage two will involve refurbishing the old library into two new modern art rooms.
