A Newsletter to Parents and Guardians October 30, 2014 Dear Parents and Guardians, It is with great sadness and grief that we report the passing of Father Richard Smith, Pastor of St. Luke’s Parish and Dean of the Ocean Deanery. Father Smith was an ardent supporter of our school through his generosity and guidance. We ask our families to keep Fr. Smith’s family and the staff and parishioners of St. Luke’s Parish in your prayers as they move through this very difficult time. We will keep our families informed of the arrangements once they are known. May his soul and all the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace. Amen. Eternal rest grant unto him oh Lord and may the perpetual light shine upon him. MIDDLE STATES TEAM VISIT Our school would like to express our sincere appreciation to everyone who assisted in making our Middle States experience so successful. We would like to extend special gratitude to our parents who attended the Team reception on Monday and met with the Team on Wednesday. Your support and assistance was invaluable and we couldn’t have done it without you. THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! Our Middle States Visiting Team has departed from our school and we are happy to report that our school has been recommended for reaccreditation. The following comments were made about our school by the Team Chair: Catholic Identity is most evident throughout the whole building. Students expressed that all students are accepted and included regardless of abilities. Teachers have a true dedication to their students and were eager to show off their students work. There is a wealth of technology used in every aspect of learning. WINTER UNIFORMS START NEXT WEEK!!! NEXT WEEK MBSCS STUDENTS WILL BEGIN TO WEAR THE WINTER UNIFORM ON MONDAY, NOVEMBER 3rd. The winter weather uniform is worn until April 15. Please see your Parent Handbook and Calendar (pgs. 10 and 11) for specific requirements for the winter uniform. AVOID LATE FEE ON BUS PAYMENTS Bus invoices were mailed on October 20 to bus rider families with a payment due on November 1, 2014 as shown on the Bus Commitment Letter. A $25.00 Late Fee will be added to all payments not received by December 1, 2014 and riders may be denied bus transportation until the accounts are brought current. CATHOLIC FAMILY LIFE A critical part of the Catholic family life is attendance at Saturday evening or Sunday morning Mass. We encourage all families to continue to attend Mass regularly. Families who may need to improve their attendance at Mass are encouraged to do so. YANKEE CANDLE BROCHURE SALES ARE DUE TOMORROW!!! Please send in all monies and order forms. Please be sure that a 6% sales tax has been added to all orders. Online sales will continue until 12/31/14 Great gifts for the holidays available online-direct shipping to you! Easy to send the link to far away family and friends! MBS code: 990056115 MBS goal: $10000 Reminder: MBS get 40% of the profits!!!! Thank you for your support and participation!!!! PRE-ORDER YOUR THANKSGIVING PIES NOW! Don't feel like baking pies for Thanksgiving this year? Our eighth grade class is having a pie sale for the Thanksgiving holiday! Thanksgiving is fast approaching, so don’t forget to order your pumpkin and/or apple pies! Pies are $10 each. Money raised from our pie sale will be donated to the Eighth Grade, Class of 2015, Activity Fund. Please complete and return the bottom portion of the order form to the school office no later than Monday, November 14th. If paying by check, please make check out to “MBSCS”. Pies will be available for pick up at MBS school cafeteria on Monday, November 24th from 1 – 4 pm. Order forms are available in the school office. Thanks for your help in advance! USED UNIFORM STORE Starting next week, October 27, 2014, our used uniform store (which is located in our music classroom,) will be open Mondays and Fridays from 7:30am-3:30pm only. Please come to the office and ask for Mrs. Edmunds, who will escort you down to the uniform store. We are also asking that donations to the store only be dropped off Mondays and Fridays as well. This will prevent interruptions in our music classes that take place Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of each week. Also, if you have any extra children’s size pant and shirt hangers that you are willing to donate to the used uniform store, please drop off to Mrs. Edmunds in the school office. If you have any questions, or need items of clothing that may not be able to wait for those days, please contact Mrs. Edmunds in the school office. She will be happy to try to locate what is needed for your student during the other days of the week that the store is not open. Thank you. SAVE THE DATE Mark your calendars. The MBS Christmas Program is scheduled for the evening of Thursday, December 11th. More information will follow. HEALTH SUITE As many of you have heard on the news about Enterovirus D68, causes mild to severe respiratory illness. Children who are already compromise with asthma or any respiratory chronic illness have a higher risk of contracting this virus. If you suspect your child has this virus or any other you should have an evaluation by your primary care provider as soon as possible. Transmission is not known, but likely when an infected person coughs or sneezes. With all viruses, strep throat, and upper respiratory infections it is important to remind your children about frequent hand washing, no sharing of food/utensils, and cover your cough. You must keep your child home if they have a fever (MUST remain home until fever-free without any fever reducing medication for 24 hours), persistent sore throat, vomiting, and diarrhea. We are asking for your cooperation in helping to prevent the spread of these illnesses/viruses. By keeping your child home, this will help with the spread of illnesses and your child will get the rest they need to get well. If your child has any new immunizations, or any other health matters, please make the nurse aware. New Immunization Requirement: All students from K-8, need two doses of Varicella; 7-8th grades Tdap (single dose), and Meningococcal (single dose). If your child is missing an immunization, a letter of notification has already been sent home. These New Immunization Requirements are from the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Flu vaccination, as always is highly recommended. Vaccines are available for ages 18 years and up. The health department does not provide the flu mist to MBS. Some places you may receive the flu vaccine: the health department, Rite Aid, Walgreens, and you primary health provider. The Health Department does require an appointment, 410-629-0164. SPORTS COMMITEE NEWS Sports Recognition Program: The Fall Sports Recognition Program will be held on Monday, November 10th @ 8:30am in the cafeteria. Remember to RSVP before Monday, Nov. 3rd. Please use the rsvp form that was sent home on Tuesday or email me. Sports Physicals: A current sports physical MUST be filled out before your child can participate in practice/games, no exceptions. Soccer Info: Congratulations to our soccer team for a great season! We thank Coach Hayes for all of his hard work and dedication to our student-athletes. Golf: We would like to congratulate the members of our golf team as well as the coaching staff, Coach Esworthy, Coach Prochazka and Coach Piperno. You all did a wonderful job of encouraging, motivating and molding our young golfers. We are eagerly looking forward to next season! Boys and Girls Basketball: With such low numbers for our boys basketball program, the coaching staff and myself have decided to allow 5th grade BOYS to participate on the team. The plan is to play 3 halves per game (pending agreement of refs/opposing team), halves 1 & 2 for middle school students and half #3 for our 5th & 6th grade students. This is a great way to keep the program running, get our 5 th graders ready for the upcoming 6th grade year and much needed experience/practice time. They will need an up to date sports physical and a $30 sports fee. Our Boys and Girls Basketball season is fast approaching!!! The MBS Athletic Dept. is in need of 2 coaches to help with the Girls Basketball Program, the duties would include running practices/study hall and coaching from home/away games. If you or anyone you may know are interested please send me an email at your earliest convenience. Thanks! Hydration!!!!: I am adding a new wrinkle to our athletic program this year, hydration is very important to everyone whether an athlete or not. This year, students participating in any sport(s) at MBS are required to have some sort of water bottle with them here at school…at all times. If I walk upstairs, cafeteria, art room or anywhere else their water bottle should be with them. This is in an effort to promote hydration throughout the day and not just before or during practice/games. If there is an issue with providing your child with a water bottle please feel free to contact me and I will make sure they get one. Fitness & Sports Equipment: We are looking for gently used fitness/sports equipment such as dumbbells, BOSU balls, medicine balls, cleats, lax sticks/helmets etc. for our teams/faculty to have access to. Since the beginning of the year there has been a strong push to improve physical fitness from both the students and staff here at MBS. Before I go out and purchase more equipment I wanted to ask our MBS families first. For more info. or to set up a time to drop off equipment, please contact me via email. Playground Equipment: I have received numerous inquiries about playground equipment this year. This summer I replaced a lot of the old balls and such and have already replaced items again a few weeks ago. The more I replace items that are left out or items that “walk off” I am depleting my equipment for P.E. I plan to add a few items between this week and next week, recess equipment is “school property” and should be treat as such, please assist us in teaching our children the importance of taking care of valued items. Other News: The MBS Sports Committee is selling “MBS Athletics” t-shirts for $10 and silicone wristbands for $1. If you or your child is interested in purchasing these please contact Coach Jarmon for more info. This is a great way to show your support for the athletic program and to share our program with the surrounding communities. LIBRARY NEWS What a fantastic month October has been! All students have worked really hard with excellent class participation. Please be very proud of your child for their outstanding Library behavior and winning attitudes. Some of our younger students are asking to check out short chapter books that are at a higher reading level. Students are telling the Library Staff that their parents are reading the book to them at bedtime. Please let Mrs. Lenox or Mrs. Ulrich know if your child is bringing home a book that is too hard, and it’s not being read at home. We will make sure your child selects a different book. Thank you so much for your assistance in helping your child to return their books on time. We truly appreciate your effort! Tuesday- PreK4, 1st, & 7th Wednesday- PreK3, 3rd & 4th Thursday- K, 2nd, 6th, 5th & 8th COUNSELING CORNER This week I visited with Middle School and Pre-3. In the Middle School grades we wrapped up our discussion about Red Ribbon Week and we began a discussion about Self-Esteem. We discussed how a high Self-Esteem helps us to make smart decisions. We discussed the “roller coaster ride” of SelfEsteem. We discussed things that raise our self-esteem and things that bring our self-esteem down. We discussed surrounding ourselves with positive people to build each other up. We discussed opinions and the ups/downs of Social Media. We discussed that comments can hurt and we should not need to feel validated by the number of followers we have or the numbers of likes we have in Social Media. We discussed our service project and we all gave our time and talent to give a picture or message of hope to the people of the Seton Center. We discussed helping those in need by a small message that may raise their self-esteem in times of need. In Pre-3, we read a book, “I’m Special, I’m Me!” This book helps little ones know that kindness by others helps us each feel special. Service Project- Friday is the last day- Donations will be accepted in each pod. Our school will hold our first service project during the week of Oct 27-31. We will collect items for the Seton Center in Princess Anne, which is a part of Catholic Charities. There will be boxes in each pod during the week of Oct. 27-31. The following items were requested by the Seton Center, we ask the following grades to bring these items: Pre3 and Pre4 - Coloring Books and crayons K, 1 and 2 - Toothpaste, toothbrushes 3, 4, and 5 - Shampoo - VO5 6, 7, and 8 - Boxed Food - mac and cheese, noodles, etc. Please have your children involved in getting these items. More information will come home to remind you of our first school wide service project. If you have questions, please contact [email protected] St. Thomas More Open House St. Thomas More Academy will hold an Open House on Sunday, November 2nd from 11:002:00. Check out their website www.saintmore.org . This is a great way for parents and students of the 7th and 8th grade to begin looking at High Schools. ON YOUR MARK. GET SET. GO! Mark your calendars for the Inaugural MBS 5K, Family Fun 1-Mile Walk and Kids Dash for Saturday, November 22 (Saturday before Thanksgiving). The event takes place on MBS and St. John Neumann property. The 5K starts at 8 am, with the Family Walk beginning at 9:00 am, and Kids Dash at 9:30 am. The event is open to all who would like to participate. Registration forms were sent home in last week's folder or can be found online by going to the MBS Facebook Page. Please hand in completed forms to the office no later than November 14, 2014. This event will be held rain or shine. There is no rain date. There will be no refunds if event is cancelled. 5K and 1-Mile Participants aged 15 and Older, register for $25. Participants aged 14 and under, registration is $15. (Those aged 3-11 will automatically be entered in their age appropriate kid's dash as well.) All participants will receive an event t-shirt. Prizes will be awarded to the top three male and top three female runners. Kids Dash Participants aged 3-11, registration is $10. All participants will receive an event t-shirt and a participation medal. Volunteers are needed. If interested, contact Lisa Mitchell at [email protected]. Calling all MBS Artists: Submit a one-color design for consideration as the event t-shirt artwork. Artwork must be turned into the office by Thursday, October 30. SAVE THE DATE!!! CASINO ROYALE 2015 (formerly known as Casino Night) will be held on Saturday, February 7th, 2015. Plan now to join us for Most Blessed Sacrament's PREMIER event of the year! Our next meeting for Casino Royale 2015 will be on November 5th at 4:30pm at MBS. Please consider joining us for a brainstorming/interactive meeting to discuss our biggest and best fundraiser of the year! We need your help and are asking for donations NOW. Forms will go home in next week's folders and will be posted to the MBS website soon as well. Please contact your 2015 co-chairs, Anne Flaherty ([email protected]) or Sean Kilroy ([email protected]) if you are able to help in any way -- no donation is too small (or too big). Thank you! IMPORTANT DATES November 3 21 22 25 26-28 Winter Uniform begins End of 1st Trimester MBS Inaugural 5K & Family Fun 1-Mile Walk, 8:00 a.m., 9:00 a.m. Thanksgiving Holiday Begins – 12:10 Dismissal Thanksgiving Holiday – School Closed PARISH NEWS ST. ANN Donut Sundays are BACK -- they will be held the 2nd Sunday of every month starting with October 12th. Donuts & Coffee is served after the 10:30 Mass at St. Ann's and is a great way to catch up with fellow parishioners! Families (children, too) are needed to help with set up, serving and clean up. If you are interested, please email Anne Flaherty ([email protected]) to inquire. The next couple of dates are 11/9 and 12/14. ST. JOHN NEUMANN Parents of 2nd graders: Our next gathering will be a Parent/Child Workshop to take place at MBS on Saturday 15 November from 9AM - 12 Noon. It is at this time that the completed folders with ALL of its contents should be handed in. They will be returned at the practice session. Youth Ministry NEW YEAR! NEW LOCATION! NEW TIME! Join in for Friday Nite Life! Music – Food – Games – Purpose November 7th –session 1 - 4-5:30pm—Middle School—MBS session 2—7-9:00pm—High School –MBS Golf Tournament DO YOU PLAY GOLF? Ocean City Golf Club, November 1st. Please see our Flyer in the gathering area. $50 per person. All experience levels welcome! Includes Lunch and Golf Cart! ST. JUDE THE APOSTLE October, the Month of the Rosary The month of October is dedicated to the Holy Rosary, one of the best known of all Catholic devotions. Every Tuesday, the Adult Faith Formation Committee is praying the rosary with mediations from St. Thérèse of Lisieux in the Religious Education Center at 12:30 p.m. This powerful prayer, joined with St. Thérèse’s messages on a simple, direct, and sure way to holiness, have helped many to gain a better understanding of the spiritual life and deeper union with Christ. Come as your schedule allows and bring a bag lunch. For further information, please call 302-644-7413. Christian Prayer Catechism of the Catholic Church "Great is the mystery of the faith!" We hear the call to evangelize and share God's word with others but often feel that we have more to understand about our faith. How do you begin? The perfect place to learn is the Catechism of the Catholic Church! We will continue exploring the Catechism focusing on Christian Prayer on Monday evenings. On October 20, and 27, we will meet from 6:30-8:30 PM in the Religious Education Center. Please call 6447413 to register before Sept. 22nd. The US Catholic Catechism for Adults and the accompanying Study Guide will be used and can be ordered when registering for sessions. Catechist Certification is available upon completion of the course. Philadelphia Eagles vs. Dallas Cowboys chances St. Jude The Apostle will be selling tickets for a chance to win two clubhouse tickets to see the Philadelphia Eagles vs. the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday, Dec. 14 at 8:30 at Lincoln Financial Field. Chances are $10 each and includes a general admission parking pass for lot A-H. If you wish to purchase a ticket you may do so online at http://stjudeslewesde.org/ and click on the WESHARE button or call the parish office at 302-644-7300. ST. LUKE CATHOLIC PARISH Make plans now to attend St. Luke's CHRISTMAS BAZAAR Saturday November 8, 9-3 at St. Andrews Catholic Center 144th Street Enjoy looking through all of the "treasures" at the white elephant and jewelry sales (new, used, costume, estate) Try your luck at the chinese auction or choose a few great books at the huge book sale! Find a perfect masterpiece in our new and "almost new" art gallery. With loads of crafts and raffles too - there is definitely something for everyone. Stay for lunch and feast on hot dogs, Kielbasa, BBQ, or homemade crab cakes and crab soup. For dessert choose a delicious treat from the bake sale. An ABSOLUTE must see is the handmade 15 car wooden train. The kids will love it!! Call the Parish office with any questions, 410 250-0300 Don't miss out on our ST. NICK 50/50 Raffle drawing on December 6 $5.00 per ticket Tickets now available for our 2015 50/50 Year Long Raffle. Winners drawn the 1st Thursday of each month. Tickets are $12.00 - Good for ALL 12 months of drawings! Perfect stocking stuffer /Teacher gift! Give them 12 chances to win !! Call the Parish office to order tickets 410 250-0300 ST. MARY STAR OF THE SEA Opportunities for Faith Enrichment: We offer the following opportunities to enrich your faith............. Lectio Divina is held every Tuesday at 6:30pm in our parish center room 116. During the hour we read the Gospel for the upcoming Sunday and share what it is saying to us. All you need is an open heart and mind. Walking Towards Eternity is a DVD Series that helps you connect the Scriptures to your daily lives. This series and the continuation of the set are held Tuesday mornings following 8:30am Mass and Thursday evenings at 6:00pm in our parish center room 110. Word of Life meets the second Sunday of each month in room 116 of our parish center at 9:40am. This month we will share how we lived the August word: "Forgive your neighbors the wrong done to you, and then your sins will be pardoned when you pray." (Sir. 28:2) ST. MICHAEL THE ARCHANGEL St. Michael the Archangel parish is interested in starting a book talk that will be hosted by Deacon Dave McDowell. The book title, The Fulfillment of All Desire, by Ralph Martin will be used. The book talk will be on Wednesday evenings from 6:30-8:00 at St. Michael's beginning in October and ending in December. In order for this to occur, we need to have between 8-10 people participate. If you are interested, please call Cindy Baker at 856-9198 for more information or to register. St. Peregrine Society is our society that supports cancer victims and those touched by the suffering of loved ones. We meet on a monthly basis to pray for our loved one and those touched by cancer and any other illness. Any questions please contact Deacon Dave at 302-945-8317. The purpose of this society is to meet on a monthly basis to pray for intercessory prayer to Saint Peregrine, the patron saint of Cancer. We will be meeting on a Sunday in the latter part of the month at 3 PM alternating between Mary Mother of Peace and Saint Michael the Archangel. Saint Michael the Archangel: 2014: November 30. Mary Mother of Peace: 2014: October 26, December 28. Following the prayer service we will have time for fellowship.