Weekly Bulletin - May 25, 2023

Dear Families,

Memorial Day Weekend

Memorial Day is a special day, always observed on the last Monday in May, where we remember and honor the brave men and women who have fought and died for our country. It is a time to reflect on their sacrifices and the freedoms we enjoy because of their service. We can show our appreciation by attending parades, laying wreaths at memorials, or simply thanking a veteran for their service. Let us never forget the sacrifices made by our military heroes.

Below is a Memorial Day prayer to say on Monday:

Father in Heaven,

Bring us peace and make us peacemakers.

Grant us the courage to work for your Kingdom

So that justice can flourish in our world.

In your mercy, gather in all of the brave men and women

who have given their lives so we can be free.

Let them live forever with you in heaven

Freed from pain in your loving embrace.

Comfort their families,

Who have also sacrificed for us.

We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Walk-A-Thon – What a Great Success!

This week the Platinum Chargers were able to choose their prizes for being the Top 10 money raisers for the school. The Golden Chargers – students who raised $350 or more - will be receiving a free dress coupon (good for free dress on Friday, June 2), ice cream treat, and $20 Target gift card. The kindergarten and 5th grade classes will get a pizza party for raising the most money on average and running the most laps on average respectively. Zak L. walked the most laps this year – 62! He’ll also be receiving a free dress coupon, ice cream treat and a $50 Target gift card. Please see the full list of winners below. I would like to thank Jim Britt and Cari O’Loughlin-Britt and their wonderful volunteers for making the Walk-A-Thon a success. As of today, we have raised $56,574 and we look forward to seeing that number grow as matching funds start coming in.

If you have not yet contributed to the Walk-A-Thon, please remember that this is one of our four required fundraisers. You can complete your commitment using this link.

Personnel Updates

We are in the process of interviewing for a School Counselor position to replace Mrs. Zambrano's role as SEL Specialist. Look for an announcement in the next week or so.

I would also like to share that our Middle School Math Teacher, Mr. Patrick Ostrander, will not be returning next year. Please see his message below:

It saddens me to say that I will be moving on from St. Louise and the end of the year to work a little closer to home. I am so grateful for my years here as a student (Class of ’06) and a teacher, as they have made me the man I am today. Thank you for the wonderful memories of excited, inquisitive math classes and exuberant rehearsals for Peter Pan. I will keep you in my prayers and ask that you keep me in yours.

Blessings,

Patrick Ostrander

We wish Mr. Ostrander the best as he finds a teaching position closer to home. We will be in the process of finding a replacement for Mr. Ostrander in the coming weeks.

Have a Blessed Weekend,

Mr. Mike Fuerte

Auction 2023 - A Grand Affair

AUCTION PROCUREMENT - Due for all Families on June 9th!

Each St. Louise Family is required to donate items valued at a minimum of $250. After June 9th, that amount increases to $300.

Not sure what to donate? Check out our wish lists and have your donations shipped direct to school!

Amazon Gift List

Pottery Barn

Still Stuck for an Idea?

Donate Charger Cards!

Visit the Charger Card window to purchase curated gift card packages the auction team needs.

Need more ideas? Check out the Procurement Ideas in the Family Packet or online here, or click here to make a cash donation - everything helps!

Auction Volunteer Meeting

WEDNESDAY, MAY 31

AUCTION ROOM

6PM

Interested in volunteering for the auction? Please plan to join us for our volunteer kick-off meeting Wednesday, May 31st in the Auction Room at 6pm.

Announcements

MAP Testing for Grades 2 - 7

THURSDAY, MAY 25 - FRIDAY, JUNE 2

School Commission & Parents' Club Joint Meeting

THURSDAY, MAY 25

No School: Memorial Day Holiday

MONDAY, MAY 29

Kids' Club Closed

MONDAY, MAY 29

Auction Volunteer Meeting

WEDNESDAY, MAY 31

AUCTION ROOM

6PM

Science Showcase

THURSDAY, JUNE 1

Grade 8 Lunch Party

FRIDAY, JUNE 2

8th Grade vs. Faculty Volleyball Game

MONDAY, JUNE 5

1 PM - 1:45 PM

8th Grade Noon Dismissal

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 7 - THURSDAY, JUNE 8

2023 Graduation

THURSDAY, JUNE 8

Baccalaureate Mass & Commencement for the 8th Grade Class of 2023

THURSDAY, JUNE 8

6 PM - 8 PM

Final Day of Hot Lunch & Milk

FRIDAY, JUNE 9

Field Day - Free Dress!

TUESDAY, JUNE 13

Congratulations Platinum Chargers - Have fun with your prizes!

CYO SOCCER & CROSS COUNTRY

FALL SIGN UPS - NOW OPEN!

St. Louise's Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) Soccer & Cross Country

FOR STUDENTS ENTERING GRADES: K - 8

BEGINS: LATE AUG./EARLY SEPT.

Register for CYO sports on the CYO website, or by scanning the QR Code below. Soccer and Cross Country practices will begin in late August/early September. Discounted registration when enrolling early!

If you have questions or are interested in a scholarship, please contact the coordinators:

Soccer: Jenelle Bair at soccer@stlouise.org

Cross Country: Carly Bixhorn at carly@bixhorn.com

CYO Sports

We have wrapped up another year of the yearbook! This is an all year volunteer commitment with numerous events and memories to capture.

This was the first “normal” year since COVID with all events back in full force. So, we had to restructure the book (yet again) and adjust quickly with the various team members below.

Janey Rabon: Co-Editor and Photographer

Penny Williams: Co-Editor and Marketing

Juan Gonzalez: Photographer—Concerts, holidays, volleyball, soccer, confirmation, Hall of Fame, musical, masses, field trips

Eugene Titov: Photographer—Walk-a-thon, concerts, recess, around school, specialist photos, group photos

Amy Tran: Photographer—Spirit Week, Walk-a-thon, around school, 1st communion, concerts

Alessandro Catorcini: Photographer—Basketball, track, volleyball, soccer, concerts

Thank you also to the various parents who have loaded in their own photos. Crowd sourcing photos has been a very successful part of covering all the activities—adding richness to the personalization of the book.

While 85% of families have ordered books, we did order 10 extra books that can be allocated to you at the end of the year, please email yearbook@stlouiseschool.org if you want to be added to the list. A separate link for payment will be sent to you to pay on OSVOnline.

(Those who do not obtain one of the 1st 10 books will have to order directly from the site with shipment to your home after school ends.)

For those not in the 1st 10, here is flyer. You will be able to customize but will not likely receive it by the end of the school year.

Students will get their books on their last day of school. Please let yearbook@stlouiseschool.org know if you will be leaving school earlier than planned, so your book(s) can be set aside for you in the office. (State child(ren) and class(es).)

Thank you all and we look forward to another great year of memories.

6th Grade Camp

Last week our 6th graders, along with their teachers and a few fearless parent chaperones, spent four days attend Environmental Education Camp at Mt. Rainier Institute. Students enjoy four days and three nights at the University of Washington’s Packwood Forest. Mt. Rainier Institute provides a nature-based educational experience that is rooted in science and nature.

The Institute provides a mix between interdisciplinary content with science process skills such as observation, inquiry, analysis, and supporting claims with evidence. Students investigate the old growth forest and do snow studies at Paradise National Park on Mt. Rainier.

Events

Mother & Son at High Trek!

SUNDAY, JUNE 4

10:00 AM

REGISTRATION DEADLINE: THURSDAY, MAY 25

Questions? Contact Silvia Macias at maciassilvia@hotmail.com.

Fundraisers

Charger Cards

Window Sale Hours:

Every Monday and Friday from 8:30 AM - 9:30 AM.
After 9am Mass on Sunday, May 28.

If you need Charger Cards outside of the above time window, please contact Ashley, Kami and Marta at chargercards@stlouiseschool.org.

App for online purchases -Ready to use in less than 5 minutes!

To enroll – see here.

Enrollment Code: 24B7587912L17

Download and use the RaiseRight app 24/7 on your phone to make e-card purchases and physical cards that can be sent directly to your home. Note: Online purchase fee is only $0.29 when you use your Bank info.

*Rebate amount required for 2022-23 school year is $125. Note: We take check, cash or credit cards (4% fee for all credit card orders)

Purchase Charger Cards

Volunteer

Calling all organizers and science enthusiasts!

Mrs. Maloney is looking for volunteers to help inventory and organize the science supply room. If you love a label maker or just like knowing where everything is, consider helping out. If you know your way around an Erlenmeyer or fossils, we need you! We are hoping to have volunteers come in to help 6/13 from 8:30 AM-5:00 PM AND 6/14 from 8:30AM-5:00PM.

Please reach out to taram@stlouiseschool.org if you are able to help. Please sign up for a slot at the sign up genius link below:

Help Mrs. Maloney

Library - End of the Year Inventory

"It is the end of the year, which means the annual inventory for the Library. This is a simple, but long process, of scanning each and every book in the library. I created a Sign Up Genius with links to two hour time slots. Please sign up if you are able to help. Thank you!"

-DeAun Green, Librarian

Help DeAun

Parents' Club Social Chair

The Social Chair oversees all social events connected to the Parents' Club and works with individual chairs of special events. Do you feel called to get involved? Find your community through Parent's Club! Would you like to work with the St. Nicholas chair and the Father-Daughter/Mother-Son chair to help them bring their special events to St. Louise?

Do you know someone who would be perfect for this role? Recommend them to us! Interested in learning more? Email, Sara J., syjordan03@gmail.com.

Help Parents' Club

Carpool Director

WEDNESDAY AND/OR THURSDAY

2:50 PM - 3:20 PM

Help keep our school safe as we head into summer! Volunteer to be a Carpool Director. Contact Vice Principal, Joellyn Jaster, joellynj@stlouiseschool.org if you can help during carpool for either day.

Help Joellyn

Parish

Novena to our Lady of Perpetual Help

SATURDAY(S), MAY 20 - JULY 8

10 AM

A Message from Fr. Gary

Dear Friends at St. Louise,

On this great Solemnity Pentecost (a big day of celebration liturgically – actually the second biggest day of the Church Year, after Easter Sunday), we rejoice in the power, gift and grace of the Holy Spirit. With this day, we celebrate the fullness of the Paschal Mystery. Those two words mean the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, his glorious Ascension to the right hand of the Father, and the sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Pentecost completes not only the 50 days of Easter, but also the 40 days of preparation, through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, that we call Lent. These 90 days are the lens through which we view the rest of the liturgical year, including Advent and Christmas (which mirror the Lent and Easter seasons), and all the other weeks of the year that we call “Ordinary Time.”

Ordinary Time, which occurs between Christmas and Lent, then again between Easter and Advent, signifies a numbered (or ordered) list of Sundays that anchor our daily lives in the Catholic Church. Really there is nothing “ordinary” about it, because we celebrate the paschal mystery every time we celebrate the Mass. Ordinary Time is just the time when we aren’t celebrating the “extraordinary” times of Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter. And in truth every Sunday is a mini-Easter, the Lord’s Day.

What does it mean that Jesus Christ has now passed from our sight and lives among us through the power and gift of the Holy Spirit? Allow me to quote from a sermon by St. Leo the Great, pope, that appears in the Office of Readings from the Liturgy of the Hours for the Sixth Friday of Easter:

And so our Redeemer’s visible presence has passed into the sacraments. Our faith is nobler and stronger because sight has been replaced by a doctrine whose authority is accepted by believing hearts, enlightened from on high. This faith was increased by the Lord’s ascension and strengthened by the gift of the Spirit[.]

I hope that those words of St. Leo touch you as deeply as they do me. We often speak about the Lord’s real presence in the Eucharist, saying and believing that the Eucharist is the “Blessed Sacrament,” since in it we receive his body, soul and divinity into our bodies and souls – since through it we can become more like him and be strengthened as members of the Mystical Body of Christ. And Christ’s presence is every bit as real in the other sacraments.

The Church too (and that is us!) is a sacrament of Christ, which is to say that we are the hands, feet, ears, eyes, voice, and hands of Christ. There is no body of Christ without both the head and the body, he being the head, and we being the members of his body. And there is no place where this is more visible than at Mass. The priest, who leads the prayers sacramentally through his ordination, represents Christ the head, and the assembly, gathered to raise our voices in song and prayer, sacramentally, through our baptism, represent the body of Christ. At Mass, we are truly a priestly people, raising our prayer up with Christ, the one, true high priest.

And the Mass only takes on its mission when we then “go out,” taking the love of God to others throughout the week. As “full, active and conscious” members of the body of Christ, we take his love – fully, actively and consciously – to all the places we go and the people we meet.

Come Holy Spirit, and enable us to live in the fire of your love!

Fr. Gary Zender

Gallery

“The Name of Jesus is the glory of those who believe. The main base of the Faith is the Name of Jesus; that Name upholds the edifice; upon it the pillars rise; upon it the summit of the monument rests, and that summit is Heavenly beatitude. The Catholic Faith resides in the knowledge of Jesus Christ; He is the light of the soul, the gateway to life, the foundation of eternal salvation.”

– St. Bernardine of Siena