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".

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!

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 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.