Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Christmas Presents at Soup Opera
On Thursday, December 18, some of our students will be at the Soup Opera wrapping presents for the giveaway on Monday. The Soup Opera would appreciate donations of wrapping paper and tape for this project. We would need to take the paper and tape with us on Thursday, so if you'd like to donate, please bring donations in by Thursday. Thanks!
Friday, December 12, 2008
Soup Opera Project Starting
Thanks to the involvement of some wonderful parents, we are ready to start our Soup Opera project. This last full week of school before Christmas, we will be taking two small groups of students over to the Soup Opera: one on Monday to help with the monthly food bag packing, and one on Thursday to roll silverware in napkins for the daily meal. We might also take a larger group on Friday, either during school or after school, to help organize toys for the Christmas giveaway; we will hear more about this possibility on Monday.
Since we had a snow day on Friday, no permission slips went home, so Monday's group will need to be made up of people whose parents give me verbal permission over the phone. If you would like to help on Monday, have your parents call me at home this weekend. We will go during third period and part of fourth period.
Since we had a snow day on Friday, no permission slips went home, so Monday's group will need to be made up of people whose parents give me verbal permission over the phone. If you would like to help on Monday, have your parents call me at home this weekend. We will go during third period and part of fourth period.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
What next?
Greetings--I'm finally getting around to editing this web page.
As you may know, we are working on a new initiative to connect our students more closely to Catholic social justice teaching, and our current task is to get involved in more service with the Soup Opera, our neighboring soup kitchen and food pantry. In case you missed it, here is our letter soliciting parent involvement:
October 30, 2008
Dear Parents of Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Graders,
We know that you are familiar with our traditional social service activities here at Fairmont Catholic—the Thanksgiving food drive, the Christmas stockings, and the Penny Sabotage through which we raise money for various causes—as well as the special projects we do and the ongoing service of the National Junior Honor Society. We are grateful for your continued support of these activities and we know that they have value in the lives of our students.
Starting last year with our Catholic Social Justice retreat for seventh and eighth graders, we have embarked on a new phase of our school-wide commitment to service. In this phase, we are working toward helping the students make connections between the service projects and the people those projects serve. We hope to encourage students to understand service more personally, and to develop their own personal commitment to serve our neighbors.
To this end, we have begun a partnership with the Soup Opera—a service agency that is literally our neighbor, with its building right across the street from our school. Students in the lower grades are doing collection projects, but we hope to have students in the upper grades connect to the agency by actually doing on-site service. Sixth graders would start with building services, including stocking shelves and sorting; older students could be involved in client services—rolling silverware for meals and serving drinks at meals, for example. Our hope is that this contact will both help the students develop a deeper understanding of service and inspire them to think about what they might do as service projects of their own.
Because the Soup Opera can only accommodate a small number of students at any one time, releasing a teacher from class to accompany the work groups will not be feasible over the long term. For this project to work, it will be necessary to have a group of parent volunteers who can accompany the work groups. We are writing this letter to ascertain if there are parents who are interested in taking on this task.
If you would be interested in volunteering, please contact us as soon as possible. If there are enough parent volunteers to move forward with this project, we would like to get started before the holiday rush.
Thanks for considering this project. Even if you are unable to volunteer, we hope you will keep this undertaking in your prayers.
God bless you.
Cynthia Garcia Jason Lake
Project Coordinators, Upper Grades
We have had some response from a few parents and hope to set up a meeting soon after Thanksgiving break. Parents, if you are interested, it's not too late to join in! Give me a call or email me at school.
As you may know, we are working on a new initiative to connect our students more closely to Catholic social justice teaching, and our current task is to get involved in more service with the Soup Opera, our neighboring soup kitchen and food pantry. In case you missed it, here is our letter soliciting parent involvement:
October 30, 2008
Dear Parents of Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Graders,
We know that you are familiar with our traditional social service activities here at Fairmont Catholic—the Thanksgiving food drive, the Christmas stockings, and the Penny Sabotage through which we raise money for various causes—as well as the special projects we do and the ongoing service of the National Junior Honor Society. We are grateful for your continued support of these activities and we know that they have value in the lives of our students.
Starting last year with our Catholic Social Justice retreat for seventh and eighth graders, we have embarked on a new phase of our school-wide commitment to service. In this phase, we are working toward helping the students make connections between the service projects and the people those projects serve. We hope to encourage students to understand service more personally, and to develop their own personal commitment to serve our neighbors.
To this end, we have begun a partnership with the Soup Opera—a service agency that is literally our neighbor, with its building right across the street from our school. Students in the lower grades are doing collection projects, but we hope to have students in the upper grades connect to the agency by actually doing on-site service. Sixth graders would start with building services, including stocking shelves and sorting; older students could be involved in client services—rolling silverware for meals and serving drinks at meals, for example. Our hope is that this contact will both help the students develop a deeper understanding of service and inspire them to think about what they might do as service projects of their own.
Because the Soup Opera can only accommodate a small number of students at any one time, releasing a teacher from class to accompany the work groups will not be feasible over the long term. For this project to work, it will be necessary to have a group of parent volunteers who can accompany the work groups. We are writing this letter to ascertain if there are parents who are interested in taking on this task.
If you would be interested in volunteering, please contact us as soon as possible. If there are enough parent volunteers to move forward with this project, we would like to get started before the holiday rush.
Thanks for considering this project. Even if you are unable to volunteer, we hope you will keep this undertaking in your prayers.
God bless you.
Cynthia Garcia Jason Lake
Project Coordinators, Upper Grades
We have had some response from a few parents and hope to set up a meeting soon after Thanksgiving break. Parents, if you are interested, it's not too late to join in! Give me a call or email me at school.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Hunger Education Retreat Day
Hi, Seventh and Eighth Graders!
Thanks for being so well-behaved and attentive on our Hunger Education Retreat Day. I hope that it was a good day for you.
I have lots of questions for you.
Did you learn anything new? If you did, do you have any plans to do anything about it?
What part of what you learned today do you think you will really remember?
What part of the day was your favorite? I think my favorite part was when you made the poster prayer stations and we took them over to church and did lectio divina with them. I loved looking down the aisle of the church during the oratio and seeing you all in prayer. I hope that our time in church today gave you a chance to talk with God about how He means for you to respond to the problems of the people of the world, especially those who are hungry.
I meant to ask you to do me a favor at the end of the day, and it might be too late for some of you, but I'll go ahead and ask it now. If you still have your poster, I would like to ask you to take it home and hang it up in your room for a week. During that week, think about what the poster has to say. If there is a Scripture quotation on your poster, maybe you could add that quotation to your daily prayer. At the end of the week, see if you have any new ideas about what the poster has to say or what we learned today.
God bless you.
Thanks for being so well-behaved and attentive on our Hunger Education Retreat Day. I hope that it was a good day for you.
I have lots of questions for you.
Did you learn anything new? If you did, do you have any plans to do anything about it?
What part of what you learned today do you think you will really remember?
What part of the day was your favorite? I think my favorite part was when you made the poster prayer stations and we took them over to church and did lectio divina with them. I loved looking down the aisle of the church during the oratio and seeing you all in prayer. I hope that our time in church today gave you a chance to talk with God about how He means for you to respond to the problems of the people of the world, especially those who are hungry.
I meant to ask you to do me a favor at the end of the day, and it might be too late for some of you, but I'll go ahead and ask it now. If you still have your poster, I would like to ask you to take it home and hang it up in your room for a week. During that week, think about what the poster has to say. If there is a Scripture quotation on your poster, maybe you could add that quotation to your daily prayer. At the end of the week, see if you have any new ideas about what the poster has to say or what we learned today.
God bless you.
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