Immaculate Conception creates video to welcome new priests

Students at Immaculate Conception School in East Aurora made a special welcoming video for the three new priests that will serve the parish and school.

When Father Gerard Skrzynksi, Father Karl Loeb and Father Aaron Kulczyk came to the parish and Family #6 in July, music teacher Glenn Colton wanted them to feel welcome at the school, so he recruited his students to make this video. With kindergarteners on rhythm sticks, first graders on ukuleles and second graders beating on buckets, the kids played, sang and joked for their new clerical team.

Colton, a member of the Buffalo Music Hall of Fame, has a history of creating videos for the school’s YouTube page. During a planning meeting at the beginning of the school year, he suggested a special welcome for the three new priests that would serve the community.

“With all the changes happening, I thought it would be a very nice gesture to start the year with a video embracing the change by welcoming our three new priests in our parish family,” he said.

Every grade brainstormed and submitted their own ideas as to how they would greet their new pastor and parochial vicars.

“Every grade gave a different spin,” said Colton. “That was totally their thumbprint.”

Colton used the project as a lesson during class time, then climbed onto the roof to shoot a video of the kids in the parking lot waving.

Colton believes in the power of healthy choices. He teaches what he preaches as his lessons reflect the respect, responsibility and honesty he puts into his songs.

 “My background comes from a character-based agenda of using music to promote life lessons. So, there is the basic music series, but there are components on life lessons,” Colton said of his classes.

The video also gives viewers a peak at what the students will be learning this year. Rhythm buckets and xylophones start off the year. Colton will bring in the electronic guitars and synthesizers later on.