Big Brothers of Sudbury recently honoured Nic Battigelli, a teacher at St. Benedict C.S.S. and Don Blackwell, a retired St. Charles College teacher for their outstanding contribution to youth in our community. The teachers received the Big Brothers’ prestigious ‘Northern Moose‘ award for their work in their youth mentoring company, “School Ties.” Battigelli and Blackwell have trained over 40 teachers and 300 peer mediators using Native traditional teachings of the Grandfathers and the Medicine Wheel believing that youth working with youth is the key to future communication among individuals.

On May 12, St. Charles College will be hosting the Clean and Clear Best Friend’s Challenge. The Best Friend’s Challenge is a fun competition for girls from grade 6 to grade 10. Two best friends will challenge other girls to basketball skills competitions. There will be 4 stations set up in the gymnasium where the girls can play 21, H-O-R-S-E, Bump, and 2 on 2.

The entry fee is $5 per team of two. The teams of “best friends” register at a registration desk and pay the entry fee to participate. There will be prizes given out to each participant as well as two grand prize draws. There will also be t-shirts given away to spectators and participants.

The challenge starts at 3:00pm on May 12. If you have any questions, please contact St. Charles College at 566-9605.

St. Charles College students were recently treated to a performance by Absolute, the high energy rock group with a message. This special presentation was part of the Empowered Student Partnership (ESP) program, a pilot project between the SCDSB, St. Charles College and the police that empowers students to be the driving force for safe schools.

The groups performance consists of 14 young members using a large sound system and light show in a concert atmosphere. Crowd participation is key to the success of this group who share personal stories with the students to bring home hard hitting messages focusing on alcohol and drug abuse, suicide, bullying, sexual abuse, impaired driving and pre-marital sex. Absolutes key message to its audience throughout the two hour performance centred on the untapped potential in this generation of young people…the belief that the value of life and purpose of life can make a difference in this world for today and for tomorrow. The group also maintains that when society only sees the problems, it is difficult to find the solutions. Absolute is attempting to fill that need in this generation; helping them through the problems by focusing on their future.

Trustees with the Sudbury Catholic District School Board have realigned the school boundaries between Corpus Christi, St. Theresa and St. Francis Schools for the September 2004/2005 school year. In all, the boundary changes will affect 38 students who will have the option of attending their current school or transferring to the school within the new boundary. “Before, we had students within walking distance of one school but being bussed to another school,” said Acting Director of Corporate Services, Hugh Lee, on the boundary changes effective September 2004.

In the fall, the St. Francis school boundaries for JK to Grade 6 students will extend to part of Copper Street. The St. Francis boundary will move north of, but will not include Zinc street.

The St. Theresa school boundary will now include the Richard Lake, Long Lake and St. Charles Lake areas and the portion of Southview Drive near the greenhouse. (This area used to be part of the St. Francis school boundary).

For a graphic summary of the changes, please reference the Boundary Realignment Map.

Brittany Goldsborough, Student Council President at Marymount Academy addressed the student body at the “Kick Off For Cancer” campaign held in the school’s gym recently. Throughout the month of April, Marymount students will be canvassing door-to-door to raise money for the Canadian Cancer Society. Proceeds from the Residential Canvass will go towards cancer research and to provide services such as reliable information, emotional support, transportation, and support at treatment centres and lodges. Special guests Sonia Del Missier, Marisa Certossi, Melissa Durrell and Peter Williams joined with the Marymount students to help celebrate the residential kick-off campaign. Marymount students have set a target of $1,000 as their goal in this year’s campaign.

Twenty-six youth from St. Charles College will be hosting 26 students from Mountain Field Academy in Forteau, Labrador from April 9 to April 15, 2004 as part of their involvement in YMCA Youth Exchanges Canada, a program of the YMCA of Greater Toronto. YMCA Youth Exchanges Canada promotes cross-cultural awareness and a sense of national identity among Canadian youth aged 12 to 18. Travel costs are funded by the Government of Canada through Exchanges Canada.

The students from St. Charles College and Mountain Field Academy will be participating in activities at Dynamic Earth and Path of Discovery on April 10, Science North’s sunset to sunrise tour on April 11, YMCA on April 12, Manitoulin Island on April 13, and Anderson Farm and Capreol Rail Museum on April 14. In addition, the Boy Scouts of Canada have volunteered their time and camp at Windy Lake for an orienteering session on April 9 in the morning.

YMCA Youth Exchanges Canada sponsors exchanges between two groups of equal size in different communities. Each group hosts the other. During their stay in Sudbury, the youth will live with the families of their twin group. Since 1976, thousands of young people have experienced the cultural and geographic diversity of Canada through participation in YMCA Youth Exchanges.

For further information, please contact: Daniel M. Boisvert at St. Charles College,

ph: 566-9605 ext.6341, 969-4415 (home),662-0543 (mobile)

Marlee Clement, a Grade 7 student at Marymount Academy was recognized by Ray Vincent, Chair of the Sudbury Catholic District School Board with a special certificate of appreciation for her excellent efforts in the 35th Regional Science Fair held this past weekend at Laurentian University. Marlee’s project entitled, “Reflex and Reaction Times,” examined the reflexes and reactions of a wide group of individuals with special emphasis on age and gender. She received first place finishes in both the Junior Physical and Best Health categories and her project was ultimately selected as “Best In The Fair,” by the judges. Marlee will now move on to represent the City of Greater Sudbury and Marymount Academy at the Canada Wide Science Fair which will be held in St. John’s, Newfoundland, May 9 to 16. Congratulations Marlee!

Students from the Sudbury Catholic District School Board had a
tremendous showing at the 35th Sudbury Regional Science Fair held at
Laurentian University this weekend winning 25 out of 40 awards in
several categories including; Junior Physical, Junior Life, Intermediate Life and Junior Engineering.

St. Francis students lead the way, collecting a total of eight medals followed closely by the students of St. Anne school with six, Marymount Academy with five, St. Charles College with three, St. David school with two, and St. Paul School rounded out the awards with one. Gold medal winners pictured, (left to right) include; Andrew Pawluch, St. Francis Catholic School, Scott Baiden, Jessie Hamilton Public School, Marlee Clement, Marymount Academy, Colin Loney, and Joshua Hubert, Jessie Hamilton Public School. The students will now move on to represent the City of Greater Sudbury and their respective schools at the Canada Wide Science Fair which will be held in St. John’s, Newfoundland, May 9 to 16.

Appearing in the photo with the gold medallists are Dan Landry, President of the Sudbury Regional Science Fair and Sue Tessier from the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum.

NET Ministries, (National Evangelization Teams) is an international youth ministry that is committed to challenging young Catholics to love Christ and embrace the life of the Church. The NET group is unique in that it uses drama, music, games, small group discussion and large group encounters to present basic Gospel messages in an exciting and dynamic way. The National Evangelists Teams train 125 young adult volunteers, serve in 90 dioceses and facilitate over 1,500 retreats annually reaching out to over 100,000 young people. The NET team has spent the first 12 days of their tour presenting to four elementary schools, all Catholic High schools as well as two parish based retreats. Appearing in the above photo, (front row) the NET team #2 which includes members from all across Canada and Australia interact with Marymount Academy’s Grade 8 students at a retreat held at the Diocesan Centre recently.