what's
new?
A note from the principal
Happy New Year! It was great to finally see all of our students back this week. Although it was quite chilly standing outside, the students’ smiles warmed my heart. Your children are such a blessing to me and to our staff.
I’d like to talk about another blessing of sorts called The Chalking of the Doors. Earlier this morning, we participated in our own chalking of the doors of our school building. Chalking doors is a centuries-old practice worldwide and a great practice whereby we dedicate our year to God from its very outset, asking His blessing on our homes (and school) and all who live, work, or visit them.
These letters are inscribed between the numbers of the year of the ceremony.
20+ C +M + B +25
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The symbols are usually written on the upper horizontal piece of the door frame of the front entrance to a home. Traditionally, we remember the names of the Magi as Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar — although these names are not to be found in Scripture. The first letters of these three names — C, M, B — are inscribed on the door frame during the chalking blessing. Some suggest the C M B may also stand for “Christus Mansionem Benedicat,” meaning “May Christ bless this dwelling.”
There are packets in church that include the prayer and chalk. Feel free to pick one up on your way out of church and bless your own homes.
Parish meeting
Just a reminder that we have a parish meeting at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, January 16th in McCrystal Hall to introduce the adjustments for our next school year. Everyone in the parish is invited to attend the meeting and Fr. Stef is asking that at least one parent from every family with a child in the school attend if possible.
PTO Event - save the date
power of prayer
We are starting a new prayer initiative for the remainder of the school year. If you have a special intention that you would like our students to pray for, please click on the link below to add your intention. As a school we will be praying for all of the special intentions we receive throughout the week.
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There is also a link at the top right of the school webpage that you can use as well to enter a prayer intention.
Shaken, not stirred
We’re excited to announce that the St. Catherine Winter Fundraiser will be held on January 25 from 7–11 p.m. at the Mess Hall, with this year’s theme: Shaken Not Stirred! Ticket details will be shared soon, but expect an evening filled with food, drinks, games, raffles (including a chance to win a trip to Europe), and live jazz music. We hope you’ll join us for this memorable night!
Raffle baskets are a significant part of our fundraising, and we’re asking St. Catherine School to contribute to two baskets: a St. Catherine Colts-themed basket and a Game Night basket. Please consider donating items for these baskets - your favorite games, Colt-themed items etc. Additionally, if you have any other items to donate, such as sports tickets, Cincinnati-themed items, or homemade artwork, we’d be thrilled to include them in other baskets as well. There will be several gift card-themed baskets as well, so gift cards are greatly appreciated!
Please aim to have all items collected before Christmas break. Items can be brought to the parish or school office. Thank you for your support!
Kids Caught in Kindness
Kids Caught in Kindness is a new initiative started by a Fort Thomas Coffee employee who witnessed three kids go out of their way to support another student who was experiencing a hard moment. At FTC we believe in the importance of recognizing those moments and the kids involved in order to support and encourage more opportunities of kindness.
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There is a lot of attention drawn to the negative behavior and choices of the youth. Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” As community members we can be the change by looking for kindness and calling it out. We can also encourage our younger members to “be the change” when we see them acting in kindness and positively reinforcing it.
FTC has created a “button” which individuals can use to donate into the fund. Gift cards will be purchased (through the fund) and given to the schools to hand out to nominated kids (as supplies allow).
Kids can be nominated by anyone in the community, either a teacher, a business owner, another parent, or a community member. The school that the child attends would deliver the gift card to the child as well as communicate to their parents or guardians that this child was “Caught In Kindness.”
Yearbook photos needed!!
As you know our school yearbook is already available to purchase!
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For the yearbook to be a great success with lots of different activities and students in it, we NEED your photos! To get to those to us, follow these four steps:
1) Go to this site: https://plicbooks.com/go/ZDC77E (this is specific to our yearbook)
2) Choose one of the preset categories in the drop down menu (ex: sports).
3) Choose "upload your files'' (for PC, phone, tablet storage) or Google Drive or Instagram.
3) Choose your photos and click "start upload."
4) Once you get the message that your uploads are complete. You are set!
This is the BEST and EASIEST way for you to share and us to receive pictures for the yearbook. Please consider saving or bookmarking the link for easy adding of photos after an event
Please take a few minutes to go in and add events for this year so far:
first day of school, soccer, cross country, field trips, class days, assemblies, volleyball, etc... We need those pictures!
If you have any questions or concerns, please email Joliene Garlich at jgarlich@stcky.org.
