St. Augustine Cathedral School places in top 10…
A team of seven fifth graders from St Augustine Cathedral School finished first at the State of Michigan Affiliate Finals for Destination Imagination, earning an invitation to represent the State of Michigan at The Global Finals competition in Knoxville, Tenn.   Last month the team placed in the top 10 in their age group at the Global competition that draws more than 1,000 teams from 30 countries. The team competing in the Direct Deposit challenge include: Matthew Carpenter, Erin Krause, Emily Langbo, Ethan Leonard, Alex Mattingly, Michaela Tuttle, and Emily Walen have been working on their solution to the challenge since October. 
     
Destination Imagination is an after school program, coached by volunteer parents, in which each team of kids work together to solve one of six challenges. The kids must come up with their own solution to their challenge without answers from friends, parents, or coaches. Teams all around the world work for months to solve the same six challenges. The teams present their solutions at regional tournaments. The top teams advance to their Affiliate Finals tournament. The top teams at Affiliate Finals, then advance to Global Finals where more than 1,000 teams, representing more than 30 countries, gather to
perform their challenge solutions, and to have fun being creative and crazy together. More than 16,000 people gather at Global Finals to demonstrate and celebrate creativity and innovation.
     
At their regional tournament, the St Augustine team was honored to receive the “Spirit of DI Award” for sportsmanship and persevering through insurmountable difficulties with positive attitudes after the tower crane they built collapsed in the middle of their performance. At Affiliate Finals they had corrected the problem and were awarded the DaVinci Award for outstanding creativity.

Mums flourish with work of St. Charles students
Recently St. Charles Borromeo Catholic School Student Council rolled up their sleeves and went to work at the farm of Mr. & Mrs. Rich Danielson as one of their service projects for the year. In less than two hours, they planted 500 mum plants. Mr. Danielson highly praised the students for doing such an outstanding job. The group will see the fruits of their labors when the mums are sold by the PTO at Applefest in September.
     

St. Joseph School supports the Food Bank of South Central Michigan
School parent, Julie Moore, a member of the Board of Directors for the South Central Michigan Food Bank, helped the students of St. Joseph Elementary School, Battle Creek, coordinate an “Out of Uniform Day” to raise funds for the Food Bank. Julie shared, “A priority for the Battle Creek Area Catholic Schools is service to our community. This project seemed like a great first step at getting the elementary school students more aware of giving to the community and helping others. The level of need the food bank sees has been growing year after year and the money that St. Joseph Elementary collected will cover the distribution costs for 1,800 meals in our community.” This contribution complements the students’ food collection for the St. Vincent DePaul Society at their weekly school Masses. The students were thrilled to present a check for $225 to Sarah Papple, Special Events Coordinator, Food Bank of South Central Michigan.
      Also, working to support the Food Bank is the National Junior Honor Society at St. Joseph Middle School. They dedicated one day this past May for their group community service project with the Food Bank. Students spent the morning at their warehouse coordinating the packaging of bulk macaroni to 795 individual boxes. Kim Smith, NJHS advisor expressed, “It was inspiring to witness our students engage so respectfully and productively in this project which supports so many individuals in our community.”

Leaving Literary Legacy
Sabina Lilly, who has helped the St. Monica School Library grow and prosper over the past 18 years, retired in June. A special all-school Mass was held in her honor on June 2, and the school's library has been renamed in her honor, as The Lilly Library.  During the June ceremony, Mrs. Lilly unveiled a bronze plaque that will hang on the library wall as a permanent remembrance of Mrs. Lilly's dedication to St. Monica School and to Catholic education.  The entire school community gathered in the school hallways to wish Mrs. Lilly many blessings in her retirement.

St. Monica school students join in “Teddy Bear” project
The St. Monica School Student Council initiated a school-wide “Teddy Bear Drive” when Kalamazoo Gazette columnist Jeff Barr announced that similar toys had been ruined in a flood at Catholic Family Service’s Caring Network, last month. Children throughout the school, in all grades, donated nearly 100 new or gently used teddy bears, along with baby items. They were delivered to The Caring Network used as a part of the Network’s “Teddy Bear Picnic” on June 22. Helping to pack items shown below are, back row (left to right) Adam Schwanzl, Makenzie Hoffman, Jarrod Lincoln, Gabe Smith and Jacob Yezback. In front row (from left) are Holden Rohloff, Bridget Ertl, Hope Baldwin and Max Reist. Photo by Leslie Ballentine.

Professional development workshop features national legal expert
Principals and administrators of the Catholic Schools in the diocese recently attended a professional development workshop featuring nationally recognized speaker Dr. Sarah Wannemueller, shown right. During the workshop Dr. Wannemueller, who is also a Catholic school principal and has a degree in educational law, explored the most challenging legal issues facing schools and how to prevent them; reviewed the areas of constituational law versus contract law, educational malpractice and the essentials of handbooks for parents and students, faculty and athletics.
      In addition Dr. Wannemueller discussed internet safety and security as well as guidelines for the responsible use of technology and social networking.
      The diocesan Office of Schools offers on average at least four professional development workshops a year to principals and other administrators as well as two annual sessions for educators in the Catholic schools.