Dec 19, 2012 – Hershey'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.
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."
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!"
It was thenthe 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.
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 inSt. Louis, Missouri. They began the fundraiser when their friend and classmateKevin 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.
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.
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 abouquet of roses and a heart pillowsigned 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.
On Dec. 6, the
Feast of St.
Nicholas we celebrated the faithfulness and generositythe 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".
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!
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 isa
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!
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!
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
"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
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.
Our Campus Ministers were hard at work making Gratitude bagsfor 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 Clubwas 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.
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.
