Saturday, December 22, 2012

A small Victory

After three years of protesting, signing petitions and letter writing, Benedictine Academy students cheered when they heard the GOOD NEWS!
Certified Hershey's Bliss Chocolates Hit Shelves | Convenience ...

www.csdecisions.com/.../certified-hersheys-bliss-chocolates-hit-shelv...Cached

Dec 19, 2012Hershey's Bliss chocolates now made with Rainforest Alliance Certified cocoa. ... Hershey's Bliss chocolates and know that they are helping to protect the ... labor and farming practices on farms supplying certified beans used ... school attendance, and address global climate change and adapt to its impacts.

Friday, December 21, 2012

A Hallmark Christmas Story

This year, my Hallmark Christmas Cards to family and friends carried this beautiful message:


"Maybe snowflakes are letters God uses to write upon the winter sky - 
a graceful script of peace, hope and love."

We want to send a heart felt Thank You! to everyone who has mailed in snowflakes for the students of Sandy Hook Elementary. Let's make sure their winter wonderland is as special and beautiful as can be - please share this image and send in your snowflake to the Connecticut PTSA.Karen Hatcher, our Jefferson Awards Regional Director, shared a Snowflake project underway for the students at Sandy Hook School.  

The school is building a winter wonderland full of homemade snowflakes for the students to experience when they come back to school.  


They are asking all of our help to send our snowflakes to the Parent Teacher Association in Connecticut by January 12, 2013.


"Let's make sure their winter wonderland is as special and beautiful as can be for the students at Sandy Hook School- please share this image and send in your snowflake to the Connecticut PTSA."


Join us in helping us send these Snowflakes - "God's letters from the sky above full of peace, hope and love!"



Christmas Giving




It was then the idea emerged forMemories in the Wind, 26 beautifully crafted memorial bells in a garden at Sandy Hook School, one for each child and adult who had lost their life in the recent tragic shooting.  

They went to work and found these artisan polished brass finished Memorial bells, which will be professionally engraved with each of their names and the dates of their lives.  CANCELLED.

The gentle calling of Church bells remind us that we are not alone, that God is with us through both the good and the sorrowful times.  In the movie, It's a Wonderful Life, we remember the words of the little child, Zuzu, when she heard the jingle of the little bell on the Christmas tree swaying:


"Look Daddy.  My teacher says"every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings.""

This past week, 26 children and adults received their wings.  

Friday, December 14, 2012

Crazy Hat Day

The Brazilian-Portuguese American Club decided to deliver some happiness by raising money from Crazy Hat Day for cancer research. 


"What is Hats On Day?  Hats On Day was founded in 1995 by four sixth-graders in St. Louis, Missouri. They began the fundraiser when their friend and classmate Kevin Beffa was diagnosed with a type of childhood cancer called Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. When Kevin got sick, he began to miss school and lost all of his hair from treatment.  Hats On Day was planned to show support for Kevin and to raise money for his surgery.  In his memory, Hats On Day continues to raise money for cancer research.




And while the students were donating money for this most worthwhile cause, the National Honor Society collected donations of new teen clothes as Christmas gifts for the children at the Elizabeth Coalition of the Homeless.

Off they went, gifts in hand from the BA community, along with hundreds of scarves wrapped with love by the Fuzzies for the Homeless Club and the Students In Action Leaders.

The National Honor Society Students also shared their time and talents wrapping and organizing Christmas gifts for the Coalition.

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Guess Who Came Into Town

Karen Hatcher, our Regional Jefferson Awards Students In Action Director, came into town this Thursday to meet with our SIA Leadership Team.  It was a great meeting as we planned together the upcoming Students In Action Leadership Conference at Kean University in February. 

Ever wonder what is discussed at these weekly Students In Action Leadership Meetings?  Here is a peak at our latest agenda:

1.   It is the 350th anniversary of Elizabethtown, New Jersey.  There is a contest open to NJ students to design a creative logo for the anniversary celebration. Grand Prize is a $500 PC Richard gift card. Other prizes include a 8GB Ipod Touch!  Several of our students are eager to enter the contest with their hopefully winning design.

2. NJ Helping Hands has created a BLOG space on NJ. com for our SIA service activities.  Our Techies are exploring the site to get ready to post volunteer projects, as our Delivering Happiness friends would say, "to inspire and inspired".

3. The planning of the Mid-Winter Conference included:  Identifying a student(s) with a passion for a project to make a 5 minute presentation to the group;  to compile a list of different service projects responding to the needs of the community; and help design the break-out sessions.

4.  Discuss how to engage other schools to become Jefferson Students In Action High Schools through the use of phone conversations, meetings, and distribution of SIA packets of materials. 

5.  Share ideas for the promotion of the Jefferson Award Globe Changers Program, Youth Service Challenge, and Jefferson Awards N.J. Governor's Award.  Internally, we shared Fuzzies for the Homeless and showed the fruits of the girls good efforts - bags and bags and bags and bags and bags and bags of Little Comfort Bags of Love containing warm scarves, note of encouragement, candy canes, and some with tissues, cough drops, and hand sanitizer as well. 

6.  Plan for a possible meeting next week with Seton Hall Prep to share our ideas to help them get organized to accomplish the 7 Goals to be a successful Jefferson Award Students In Action Leadership School.

Feast Day

The Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to Juan Diego on Tepayac Hill near Mexico City in December 1531.  After the miraculous cure of his uncle,  the roses he miraculously received for the bishop fell to the ground and the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was miraculously impressed on the inside of his tilma. 


During her first apparition Our Lady said, "Since I am truly your merciful Mother, and that of all people, I will grant everyone who visits the sanctuary ...my compassionate attention, my help and my salvation.  I will hear your cries of distress so as to cure all your sufferings and ills."

During this Year of Faith, a time of renewed evangelizing within our own hearts and the Church, the Campus Ministers joined the faith community of our good neighbors, St. Catherine of Siena, for celebration of the Eucharist on this special feast day.  They unexpectedly, to the delightful surprise of the congregation, distributed beautiful roses to each member present and placed one sprig at the feet of the Blessed Mother. 

Upon their return to Benedictine Academy, the Campus Ministry Student Leadership Team also presented Mrs. Campos a bouquet of roses and a heart pillow signed by the entire school community for our dear Mr. Campos. The message was simple:  "Mr. Campos, we love you and we miss you. We are praying for you."  Mr. Campos is the person responsible for keeping our school campus so beautifully maintained. He has been home ill, battling cancer.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Feast of St. Nicholas

On Dec. 6, the Feast of St. Nicholas we celebrated the faithfulness and generosity the real Bishop Nicholas of Myra. Nicholas was a saint known as the Wonderworker for the many miracles of love God granted through his intercession for the poor and young children.


He became a model for the legend of Santa Claus and the joy of gift-giving during Christmas. In honor of this Feast Day, the Make A Wish Club worked with the BCD's (Benedictone's Cor Defenders) to invite all the students to write letters to Santa. In exchange for their kindness, they received a candy cane and a gift of one homework pass from their teachers!

The letters will be dropped off at Macy's who will donate $1. to the Make-A-Wish Foundation for each letter they receive. Make-A-Wish Foundation provides dreams come true for children with terminal illnesses.

Stop by Macy's in your shopping travels and write a letter to Santa to help the little children. Together, we can "deliver happiness, one nudge of kindness at a time".

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Little Comfort Bags of Love

The Freshmen Students went to work again to package an additional 200 handmade scarves with words of comfort and candy canes for the Elizabeth Coalition for the Homeless.
 

Tara's Fuzzies for the Homeless donated the scarves and the Students In Action Leadership Group provided the bags, message cards, ribbon, candy canes, tissues, cough drops, and hand sanitizers.

It was an amazing time as they laughed together, worked together and prayed together to bring the Lord's healing touch to people without homes.

While they were making Little Bags of Comfort, other students were getting ready to go to the shore with their families and friends for Project Wave to help clean and rebuild after the damage from Hurricane Sandy.

Being a Service Leadership School means listening with the ear of your heart to the local and global needs and responding with love. And when we deliver happiness... the Lord blesses us one hundred fold with happiness in return. Very awesome!

Saturday, December 1, 2012

DELIVERING HAPPINESS!

 

Guess who came to Benedictine Academy... the Delivering Happiness Film Crew! WOW!!!!!!
What an amazing experience to share our Benedictine Academy story with these awesome people.
A little over a year ago, we read the Zappos book, Delivering Happiness, by CEO Tony Hsieh and Jenn Lim, the CEO of Delivering Happiness. And as they say, the rest is history.

We were inspired and began to inspire our students and staff to begin to live our Mission Statement and culture in a new way - the Delivering Happiness Way. Our belief statements, core values were rewritten so that they were simple, easy to remember and inviting to follow.

We were living for a higher purpose by serving others. The results were not surprising. Helping others, going beyond the expected, made others happy and it made us happy in return, one hundred fold. We were, as Jenn Lim said, "nudging our world to a better place" one kindness at a time and it turned into a movement. A movement that led us to winning the National Jefferson Award Gold Medal for best high school in the country for public volunteer service.


The Film Crew, Rachel. Meredith and Sherief, spent the day interviewing students and staff, filming their day in classes, at lunch and while preparing for the awards ceremony. At the school-wide Students In Action Award Ceremony, we recognized and gave a WOW experience to our Unsung Heroes, students and staff who went beyond the ordinary to show extreme kindness.



Mr. Jennings also issued a challenge,Tony Hsieh's Zappos Challenge, to the entire school community. Tony Hsieh is a Harvard graduate and the CEO of the billion dollar Internet shoe company, Zappos.

His challenge to everyone is this: Make at least one small improvement every week to make the place you live and work better. One small improvement does not seem like a lot, but at the end of the year, exponentially, it can have a huge effect.

If we all did this at Benedictine Academy, by the end of the year we would have made over 10,000 acts of improvement!
Now that is a WOW!

Students In Action Awards

 

In June 2012, Benedictine Academy was awarded the National Jefferson Gold Medal for the best high school in the entire nation for their public volunteer service to others.
We are proud to be part of a community, a family,
who are leaders of compassionate action.

Each month, we have the privilege of celebrating students who have been inspired to perform outstanding public service and have inspired others to follow their example. They are our “Unsung Heroes “ – ordinary people doing extraordinary things. This month, we have several honorees who have gone above and beyond in their contribution. As Jenn Lim, the CEO of Delivering Happiness Co., would say, “they have nudged our world into a better place”.

The Brazilian and Portuguese-American Club held their annual school-wide Cancer Walk. Everyone’s hearts at BA were so generous in giving and participating in this most worthy cause raising almost $2,000 in donations. Karen Thompson, Laura Gomez, and Marielis Vazquez were recognized, along with their Moderator Ms. Rodriguez.


We are proud to award Aaliyah Hill Grevious the Jefferson Award Students In Action Certificate for delivering compassionate action during a Championship Meet on October 24. She dropped out of the race to give help to an injured racer from Union High School. The student was bleeding from the mouth and muddy. Aliyah was called an outstanding Humanitarian.
These past few weeks have been a difficult time for so many of our families, friends, neighbors and residents in the State of New Jersey. People have lost their homes, power, and heat because of the devastating winds of Hurricane Sandy. It has been said that the best leaders are servant leaders. BA’s Teen Hunger Council and the Sophmore Student Council worked together to make a Hunger Awareness Video and help raise money among the Sophomore Class for Hurricane Victims. Kayla Roque, Marina Santiago and Karina Costa, along with their Moderators Ms. Banks-Suggs and Ms. Powell, were recognized for their great efforts.
These are not are only angels. There were over 55 student’s families and staff members of our BA community that so magnanimously opened the doors of their homes to neighbors, family and friends without heat, shared their food, cooked for others, lent generators, shared their gas, and made donations of their time and money during the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. At Benedictine Academy, we are proud and grateful to each of our students, their families, and people in the communities for delivering happiness to others during this time of crisis. They each received a Gratitude Bag prepared by the Students In Action Leadership Team.

In this Year of Faith, BA shows their faith in action!

SAVING LIVES

CPR & AED CERTIFICATION

This Saturday, almost two dozen students, moms and staff from Benedictine Academy and St. Gen's were trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation and in the use of an automated emergency defibrillator.

Our JTB CLUB working with Atlantic Health Services, Chatham Emergency Squad and the John Taylor Babbitt Foundation arranged for this life-saving training at Benedictine Academy.

There are often only precious minutes between life and death.
At Benedictine Academy, we choose to be pro-active in making our school and the local communities a better place.
Learn CPR Information
Learn CPR is a free public service supported by the University of Washington School of Medicine. Learn the basics of CPR - cardiopulmonary resuscitation. The American Heart Association issued updated CPR guidelines in October, 2010.
Check the victim for unresponsiveness. If the person is not responsive and not breathing or not breathing normally. Call 911 and return to the victim. In most locations the emergency dispatcher can assist you with CPR instructions.
2. PUMP
If the victim is still not breathing normally, coughing or moving, begin chest compressions. Push down in the center of the chest 2 inches 30 times. Pump hard and fast at the rate of at least 100/minute, faster than once per second.

3. BLOW Tilt the head back and lift the chin. Pinch nose and cover the mouth with yours and blow until you see the chest rise. Give 2 breaths. Each breath should take 1 second

Multiplication of the Loaves

 

"There are so many people displaced because of the economy and Hurricane Sandy ", shared our friends at the Coalition for the Homeless. They are in dire need of food, coats, blankets , and the list goes on and on.


The Campus Ministers' Benedictine's Cor Defenders responded, "Here I am Lord. I have come to do your will."

They promptly joined forces with Ms. Banks-Suggs' Teen Hunger Council and Ms. Powell's Sophomore Student Council to collect bags and bags and bags of food, along with warm blankets, to help our neighbors in need and deliver a little happiness.

In this Year of Faith, we are called to be the Face of Christ to those who are suffering. It is a privilege and a grace to serve Jesus in the poor

Fuzzies for the Homeless

 

Tara, a freshmen student, has been listening with the ear of her heart to the whispers of the Holy Spirit, "When I was a stranger, you clothed me...". Tara began her own charity called "Fuzzies for the Homeless". She enlisted the aid of her family, friends, and ladies in the Church to join her in knitting scarves for those out in the cold.

Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of scarves were brought to Benedictine Academy for her classmates to help wrap and gift to people in need of a little loving care.


These beautiful scarves are made with love and are a tangible sign of God's caring presence in the world. The first stop was Dawn's Place in Philadelphia, Pennsylsvania.

Dawn's Place is a home to house and bring healing to victims of human trafficking and abuse. Their outreach is extensive in the local communitites and the need is great . "This is why we have put together a three story house that is comfortable and feels "like home," in which they can begin their journey into recovering their dignity."

Sr. Donna Jo delivered over 100 scarves to Dawn's Place this weekend and received the joy of seeing the smiles on their faces.

Friday, November 23, 2012

ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE


Our Campus Ministers were hard at work making Gratitude bags for family, friends and neighbors in the communities who were Good Samaritans to those who experienced damage from Hurricane Sandy.

While they were busy making Gratitude Bags, Ms. Medina's Club was collecting shoe boxes of goodies for Operation Christmas Child.  

A simple shoe box filled with dolls, cars, or even school supplies is just another way to deliver happiness to children across the globe. Each shoe box is prepared with love.  We enjoy being a part of this project and giving back.

... and Benedictine's Cor Defenders were preparing bags of Thanksgiving dinners full of turkeys and all the fixings for families in need.

We give thanks to God for the opportunity to DELIVER HAPPINESS to our sisters and brothers in the local and global communities.  

Friday, November 16, 2012

SIA FALL LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE

 
The Jefferson Awards Students In Action Leadership Conference was held in the STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) Building on Kean University Campus. It was an amazing day consisting of team building, leadership development, goal setting and strategic planning with over 150 students from schools in Northern New Jersey.
Karen Hatcher, the Regional Jefferson Awards Director, and Robert Provost, the Director of Marketing for the Star Ledger, inducted Benedictine Academy's Students In Action Leadership Team as an Ambassador School. Benedictine Academy is one of the six schools (out of 350 + high schools) across the country to achieve Ambassador Level Status,

This is the highest Jefferson Awards honor that can be bestowed on a high school based on excellent achievement and Regional Gold Medal Awards two years in a row.

Our SIA Students were responsible as the Leadership High School to mentor the other high schools and lead the workshops. We were excited to be with our brother school, St. Benedict's Prep, who is now a Jefferson Awards Students In Action High School.

State Farm, a partner of Jefferson Award, presented Karen Hatcher with a most generous check for $14,500 to help support the Students In Action program.


Service Leadership is the hope of our future for a better world.