The students of St. Charles College raised an amazing 175,533 cans and $25,000 for this years food drive for the Sudbury Food Bank! Throughout the past week, the students visited various homes and businesses in our community to canvass for the annual fundraiser. Feeder schools of St. David, St. John, St. Paul, Pius XII and Holy Trinity also helped contribute to this great cause!
Congratulations on another successful fundraiser, Cards!
In 2015 eight universities in Ontario collaborated with the Ontario Catholic School Trustee Association (OCSTA) to create the OCSTA Certificate Course in Leadership & Good Governance. This is a 12-week online course that is provincial in scope but also includes local Catholic issues specific to a trustee’s own regional district. The course provides a trustee with many benefits such as developing a greater understanding and appreciation of the history of Catholic education in Ontario along with a greater understanding of the role of Catholic social teaching in our modern society. The leadership lessons of Pope Francis are also explored in the course. Topics include youth engagement in Catholic education, the role of the trustee as a public advocate for Catholic education, our support for Ontario First Nations, Metis and Inuit education and an examination of trends in Catholic education throughout Canada and the rest of the world.
Sudbury Catholic Trustee, Nancy Deni took part in this program. As part of the program, trustees are required to work on a practicum project that ideally could benefit their school board. Deni chose to focus on the home-school-parish triad relationship and ways that this triad can be strengthened. As part of her project, she sought and received feedback from parents, principals, priests and laypersons in the Church as she feels very strongly that the strength of this relationship is the key to keeping Catholic education alive and well in Ontario.
“I feel very privileged to be amongst the first cohort of trustees to complete the program,” Deni stated. “It was an eye-opening experience and I recommend the course to all trustees who want to be strong advocates for Catholic education in this province. This course really strengthened my belief that a Catholic education provides students with a really special and unique educational experience. We really do educate the mind, the body and the spirit in our schools.”
As part of their school’s Catholic Education activities, St. John, St. Anne and St. Paul Catholic Elementary Schools held an in-school Relay for Life on Friday, May 8, 2015. For St. John, this year marks the school’s seventh year hosting the event. St. John teacher and event organizer Irene Raymond was talking to staff at the other two schools and decided that they too would start an in-school Relay for Life event. At each school, students, staff and invited guests started off their day in the gymnasium to listen to speakers from their own school communities talk about their own experiences, as well as local cancer organizations talk about the positive impact the schools’ relays have on the community.
All three schools surpassed their fundraising goals with St. John raising over $4500, St. Paul raising over $6400 and St. Anne raising over $13,500.
Organizer and St. John teacher was overwhelmed with the participation and fundraising efforts at all three schools. “What an amazing turnout for all three Sudbury Catholic schools! I am so very proud of our successes! It was truly an amazing and emotionally humbling experience – we are all so proud of the efforts of all the students, staff, families and community partners that supported this year’s Relay for Life events – it is so very touching and impactful!”
Students who attend St. Paul, St. John, St. David, St. Raphael, St. Andrew, Pius and St. Bernadette Catholic elementary schools are out in full force this week. Their mission is to collect cans for its food drive in collaboration with St. Charles College.
Students from the seven schools are going door-to-door to collect cans and other non-perishable food items to help the Sudbury Food Bank stock its shelves over the cold winter months.
Every year, the feeder schools team up with St. Charles College, Q92 and KISS 105.3 to Stuff a Bus full of food. The radio stations also broadcast live from the school parking lot during the week. The food is then transported to the Sudbury Food Bank warehouse.
Student can collect a combination of canned foods and cash. Last year, they surpassed their goal by collecting more than 112 thousand cans.
The food drive began more than 25 years ago and its founder, former student Jim Szilva still takes part in the drive with his former high school.
Totals will be tabulated, with a wrap-up set for October 23rd.
After 7 months of preparation, The St. John’s “Bookie Monsters” are proud of their third place finish at The Battle of the Books Competition held on April 23rd at Tom Davies Community Centre in Lively. Furthermore, the team won the spirit award thanks to the quick thinking of Mrs. Roque, teacher and Bookie Monster parent, who created the team cheer on the spot! Coaches Mrs. Whitman and Mrs. Walker are very proud of James Roque, Ashley Ross, Lauren Carlson, Avery Hoffman, Madison Michalowicz, and Aidan Gardner.
Despite the rain that poured down on May 10th, the students and staff of St. John Catholic Elementary School remained committed to their walk for their 5th annual relay for life with just one tweak – instead of walking outside, they decided to walk inside the school’s gym. Event organizer and teacher Irene Raymond didn’t miss a beat when the weather decided to be uncooperative and quickly made arrangements for each of the classes to rotate their walks in the school gym.
The day’s event was kicked off with a presentation of a banner from the Sudbury chapter of the Canadian Cancer Society’s Cathy Burns who wanted to publically acknowledge the school’s outstanding efforts in supporting their organization. Raymond received the banner on the school’s behalf and spoke to the students before the relay began. “Every single person in this room has been or will be affected by cancer,” Raymond explained. “Today we are honoured to have a group of survivors who will be joining us on our walk and we celebrate their strength and courage to fight back!” The students echoed Raymond’s message “Fight back” and it was the phrase that was shouted throughout the event. The students walked with the survivors as well as family and community members.
The school was visited by the Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Cancer Society (Ontario Division) – Martin Kabat a few weeks earlier to kick of the school’s fundraising efforts for their event and he encouraged the students to continue in their support for such an important cause. As well, he thanked them for their fundraising efforts from previous years as they have contributed well over $15,000 to the Sudbury branch.
This year’s efforts have surpassed all other years for the school as the grand total to date is well over $7200 with more pledge money still coming in. According to Raymond, the students really outdid themselves this year and were completely focused on raising the most amount of money they have ever raised with one student raising close to $1000 all on her own. “I am so proud and thankful that the students, staff and parent community of St. John Catholic Elementary School are such giving and generous group,” Raymond stated. “We have shown once again that we care about each other and that we are committed to continuing to fight back againstt cancer.”
The event finished with the entire group gathering in the school’s gymnasium for the annual luminary ceremony.
Father Mathieu, Parish Priest of St. John the Evangelist in Garson accepted a cheque from Toni Kritz-Roque, the grade 2 teacher from St. John Catholic Elementary School last week. The school raised the money through gift donations from staff and students that were used to make baskets and then raffled off. As well, local business donated gift certificates for the school’s gift tree. Tickets were sold and a total of $1500 was raised to support the parish. The parish is using the money to purchase malaria nets for children in third world countries. Each net costs ten dollars and can potentially protect a small family or groups of children from malaria.
St. Charles School in Chelmsford once again had their Johnathan Hetu walk. This is the fifth year of the walk in remembrance of Johnathan Hetu, a student who passed away from cancer. This year the walk was able to raise $3200. This puts our 5 year total at $22 175. Both of Johnathan parents were able to join us in the walk and channel 10 news was also there to do a story, which is now appearing on Channel 10 news.
The Johnathan Hetu Day during Education Week was once again a success. Six schools: St. Michael, St. Mary’s, St. Francis, St. Raphael, St. Anne and St. Charles were able to Raise $1168.00 in support for the Northern Ontario Families of Children with Cancer. The hat day is in memory of Johnathan Hetu who was a student at St. Charles school and passed away from cancer. So far St. Charles has organized two walks and two hat days since 2006 and have been able to help raise $13639.18 for the NOFCC. St. Charles will once again have their Johnathan Hetu walk on June 23 when they hope to break the $15000 mark. Thank you to all the students and teachers that participated.
Six thousand, five hundred! That’s the number of food items that students at St. John Catholic School raised in support of the Garson Food Bank.
Tricia Dowdall-Cirelli, Principal of St. John Catholic School is very proud of the efforts of her students in helping the less fortunate. “St. John Catholic School students are learning through Christ’s example to be selfless, charitable and champions of social justice,” states Cirelli. “The students are also being empowered through example to make a difference by affecting change not only in their own backyards but in our city, country, and world.”
