Gr.2/3 teacher, Mrs. Onucky-Vervega prepares her Gr.3 student Ryan Vendette for Easter. Each year, the students participate in a traditional Easter art activity. All students deocrate egg cartons. Each egg carton holder represents an Easter symbol, beginning the with the colour purple that represents Lent.
Category: Faith
St. James School “Fun Family Faith Night”
St. James Catholic School and St. Pius X Parish of Lively partnered to create an event that brought the school and the faith community together. The School Council led by Chairperson Jane Saal planned a “Fun Family Faith Night”.
The evening offered an opportunity to share in many faith-based activities and games geared to both students and their families and provided a forum to celebrate the virtues and values of our Catholic School. The school community was welcomed at the door by parish priest Father Terry Fournier and Deacon Pat Raymond. School Council chairperson Jane Saal stated that, “One priority for the St. James School Council is to augment the school’s spiritual atmosphere by facilitating family faith development and a family faith evening was a perfect occasion to implement our goal. This event provided an excellent opportunity to strengthen the home, school and parish connections at St. James School. The evening was extremely well received and well attended and judging from the feedback we will continue the tradition of a faith night again next year”.
Shrove Tuesday at Pius XII
The students at Pius XII School celebrated Shrove Tuesday with a little help from some special guests, The Holy Redeemer Knights of Columbus Council #10888. Gerry Baronette facilitated the event and brought 9 of his brothers with him to prepare delicious homemade pancakes for the 320 students. The students were all very excited and appreciative that the Knights took the time to volunteer and donate the supplies to make them a fabulous pancake lunch. The students are already eager for the next visit from the Knights!
St. John Catholic School Celebrates “World Day of the Sick”
In keeping with the spirit of the “World Day of the Sick” (Saturday, February 11th), a celebration was held at St. John Catholic Elementary School on Wednesday, February 8th,at which time students, staff, and invited guests joined together to take part in a prayer service honouring their community. Reverend Jim Ketzler from St. John the Evangelist Church led the service in which statues and crucifixes that were donated by the Sisters of St. Joseph from the former St. Joseph Health Centre (General Hospital) were blessed and then distributed around the school. As well, there were special blessings for all health care providers and the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick for all those who were present and in need. “At the beginning of the school year, all of the principals gathered together with Bishop Simard, Senior Administration and our parish partners, to put together pastoral plans for our schools,” Tricia Dowdall-Cerilli, Principal of St. John stated. “We had discussed many options, but we knew that this was definitely something we wanted to celebrate as we were so honoured to be gifted these crucifixes and statues from the hospital. Seeing as in the month of February, we celebrate the virtue of empathy – we knew that the timing was perfect for us to bring our community together, and take part in such a wonderful, meaningful celebration.”
Learning to Make Every Penny Count
Two teachers at St. Anne Catholic Elementary School decided to join forces. JK/SK teacher Cheryl MacRury and Grade 7 teacher Kathy Belanger decided they wanted to get their students involved in a community action project, and figured they would have more of an impact if they worked together. The teachers applied for a grant with the Canadian Teacher’s Federation and were successful, allowing them the opportunity to bring their project to life. Both classes decided that they wanted to help animals, specifically the Wild at Heart Animal Refuge. The two classes split the grant money and put it towards a different part of the project. The grade seven students decided to purchase digital cameras so that they could document their project and put together multimedia projects to showcase their progress. The JK/SK class decided that they would take some field trips to the shelter itself so that they could learn more about the animals they are hoping to help. In order to get their project started, the classes decided to visit local businesses and organizations in their community, and if allowed, leave donation cans in support of their project. All they were asking for were people’s pennies. Several businesses immediately jumped on board. After the first collection, they very quickly they realized that their penny collection was going to be a great teaching tool for their students. Every few weeks, the students gather together in one classroom and break off into groups of a few grade seven students and one JK/SK student. Each student is then given a pile of pennies that have been collected and the older students guide the younger student in counting out 50 “penny piles”. “Peer learning is such a great teaching tool for our students,” Belanger commented. “The older students become mentors for the young students and each look forward to our meetings as they enjoy learning from each other!” So far, the students have collected and counted over $70 in pennies over the last couple of months.
“Our students are not only learning numeracy, they are also learning literacy, technology, the importance of compassion, community and virtues.” Stated MacRury. The two classes will continue to meet on a regular basis to tally their collections right into June. The Grade 7 students will then have the opportunity to showcase their media presentations to the rest of the school. The group is hoping not only to donate funds to the shelter, but also donate much needed items like food and cleaning supplies.
“The dedication and hard work of our staff is second to none,” Catherine McCullough, Director of Education for the Sudbury Catholic District School Board stated. “These kinds of projects really engage our students, and allow them to see beyond the classroom. These are important life lessons that are a foundation for success in life.”
St. Anne Students Believe in Motto “Respect For All”
The pupils at St. Anne School in Hanmer pride themselves on demonstrating Catholic virtues. Since September, the students within the Sudbury Catholic Board have worked very hard to practice those virtues of respect, faith, justice, patience, and responsibility. Recently, a presentation from Camp Quality helped to re-enforce all these virtues and more.
Camp Quality is an organization run by volunteers who provide children with cancer the opportunity to experience the joys of camp life during the summer. The camp location in Northern Ontario can be found on the west arm of Lake Nipissing near Monetville. During the school year, the camp sends volunteers and life size puppets into schools to work with students from all grade divisions. Some of the puppets are recovering from leukemia or cancerous tumours. They explain to other puppet friends their feelings and concerns as they return or get ready to return to school. The performances are free for elementary schools and help children to understand the importance of caring for and offering support to one another, especially when a child has a major illness such as cancer.
The St. Anne students enjoyed the presentation immensely. Many of the students themselves have family members who have experienced cancer. The Camp Quality volunteers not only helped re-enforce those virtues already learned, but helped prepare the children for future virtues such as compassion, courage, kindness, and helpfulness. When asked about the presentation itself, the students from all divisions got the message loud and clear. “We may not always look the same on the outside, but we are still the same person on the inside.” Way to go Angels!
St. Paul Says Good-bye to Bishop Simard
St. Paul the Apostle School celebrated the Eucharist with Bishop Noel Simard on Thursday January 19th in the the school gym. The school was fortunate to celebrate with the Bishop one last time before he leaves our diocese to become the Bishop of Valleyfield Quebec.The staff and students prepared small farewell gifts for Bishop Simard which he was thrilled to receive. He told everyone that he will cherish his memories of his time as the auxiliary Bishop and especially his time visiting schools and working together to promote Catholic Education.
From Project to Plan… Three Immaculate Students Are Making a Difference
Abigail Morgan, Sydney Hall and Alexa Connors are inspired – inspired to make a difference on the other side of the world.
The three grade 6 Immaculate Conception students, along with the rest of their class, were given a project. As part of their religion and French studies, the class was assigned a project about someone who has made a difference in the world. The three girls chose Ryan Hreljac. Ryan Hreljac, when he was just six years old, decided to raise money to buy and build wells in countries where there is little access to clean water. By 2001, Ryan had established the Ryan’s Well Foundation which raises money for wells to be built in areas affected by the global water crisis. Through learning about Ryan and his organization, Abigail, Sydney and Alexa knew that just doing a project wasn’t enough. They wanted to start their own fundraising efforts to support this foundation. After getting the support from their teacher, Chantal Rancourt, they brainstormed ideas on how best to approach their project. Ms. Raincourt suggested they put together a video presentation to share with their class and their school, as well as invite other schools at the Sudbury Catholic Board to get involved. The students decided to present their video, as well as hold a Water Wednesday on December 14. The girls’ class helped out by creating posters to put all over the walls throughout the school reminding everybody as the day drew closer, and the whole school was encouraged to bring in their loose change, loonies and toonies. At the end of the day, the girls managed to raise over $210 in their first day of fundraising. But it doesn’t end there. Many other activities have been planned including a walkathon and a jumpathon, scheduled for the spring as they are determined to reach their goal of $2000 – which is the cost of one well. “We are asking everybody to do extra chores, save their allowances, anything to help out” quipped all three girls when asked about what their next immediate plans were. “We started this during the month of November, and November’s virtue of the month is Justice, so we thought it was really important that we did something that helped with justice in the world.”
Chantal Rancourt, knew that they were serious about this right at the beginning of the project. “These girls approached me and began right away to discuss a plan – I knew that this was something that they were extremely passionate about.” Rancourt stated. “ I am so proud of their efforts, and their encouragement of others to support this cause. Their actions are truly reflective of the virtue of Justice, and they are now inspiring others to make a difference too. We are all looking forward to seeing what their next steps will be!”
Celebrating St. Andrew
Students and staff celebrated the feast of Saint Andrew Patron Saint on Nov.30th, an important date in the annual liturgical calendar, because it determines the date of the First Sunday of Advent. Saint Andrew is the patron saint fisherman of Scotland and Russia. Andrew, the first Apostle called by Jesus, was a fisherman and he was the brother of Simon Peter. A school and parish connection was made as parents, staff and students celebrated the event at St Andrew parish with a mass, and pizza lunch at the church. As well, a special painting was sketched of St Andrew the Patron Saint and was blessed by Father Sam.