February 23 – March 3 NO SCHOOL – February Vacation
March 1 Hot Lunch ordering for April begins
March 4 School Resumes
March 4 Auction Committee Meeting – 7:00 PM – Margaritas
March 5 Staff Meeting – 7:30 AM – 5M
March 6 Ash Wednesday Mass – 9:15 AM – 5G preparing
March 8 Early Release – 12:30 PM – NO After Care
March 11 Auction Committee Meeting – 7:00 PM – Margaritas
March 12 After Care in 1st Grade
March 14 STEM Day
March 14 STEM Science Fair – 5:30 – 7:00 PM – School
March 15 Stations of the Cross – 2:15 PM
March 15 After Care in 1st Grade
March 18 St. Patrick’s Day Free Dress
March 18 Auction Committee Meeting – 7:00 PM – Margaritas
March 20 Lifetouch Spring Photos – Dress UP Day
March 22 Stations of the Cross – 2:15 PM -- 4D presenting
March 22 After Care in 1st Grade
March 23 AUCTION! – 5:30 PM – Sky Meadow Country Club
March 26 Bishop Guertin Catholic Schools Concert
March 27 Paper Wednesday News
March 28 STEM Day Snow Date, if necessary
March 29 Stations of the Cross – 2:15 PM – 5M preparing
March 29 After Care in 1st Grade
NEW! Thank You – Thank you to Emily Uong, Melissa Michels, and Julie Knapp for coordinating our Yearbook group photos yesterday! It’s not easy to wrangle excited kids for a group shot, but they did a super job of getting it done!
NEW! Sunglasses Please! – We have a strange, but special request! On Tuesday, March 5, we would love for all students to bring a pair of sunglasses to school to wear! Your child will bring them home that afternoon. This is for an Auction surprise! Thank you for your help!
UPDATED! Annual Fund– Just over a month left to get your donation in to the Annual Fund so it appears in the Honor Roll of Donors! All donations made before April 1st will appear in the Honor Roll published in the summer edition of the News and Notes. As of today, we have raised $25,501 towards our $34,000 goal!
Donating to the Annual Fund is easy! You may make your donation using any of the following methods:
- Return the remittance envelope included in your Annual Fund letter along with a check, cash, or credit card number.
- Send a check or cash in to school in an envelope marked “Annual Fund”.
- Call Business Manager Murrayann Abucewicz at 882-7442, ext. 113, to have your credit card charged manually.
- Or donate online through Paypal HERE.
However you choose to donate, please know that we are MOST grateful!
TODAY! St. Chris at the Red Sox! – The deadline of February 20 is TODAY! Join our Saint Christopher community for some family fun at Fenway Park! Our Parent Group has secured two blocks of tickets for the Saturday, June 8th 1:05 PM game vs. the Rays!! Tickets for St. Chris will be available in the bleachers ($40 each) or the grandstand ($68 each) and we will all be sitting together. This is not a fundraiser, just a great opportunity to get together and cheer on our World Champion Boston Red Sox! Tickets must be purchased HERE by TODAY. No additional tickets will be available beyond the 20th, so reserve your seats today!
THIS WEEK! Junior Great Books Registration -- Junior Great Books will begin after February Vacation! It's not too late to sign up....send in your registration form HERE by Friday!
Hot Lunch Ordering – Hot Lunch ordering for April will open while we are on vacation! It will remain open through midnight on Friday, March 15 and no late orders can be accepted. Log into Boonli.com HERE.
NEW! Registrations OVERDUE -- If you have not yet completed the online registration for any child who will be a student at St. Christopher School in Fall 2019, your registration is now. We are currently drafting our budget for the next school year and tuition is based on the number of enrolled students for 2019. Because late registrations can not be counted towards our enrollment numbers in the budget, every late registration causes our tuition rate to be higher. If you are intending to send your child/children to the school in the Fall but have not registered, please do so immediately. Thank you!
NEW! Ash Wednesday Mass – Lent will soon be upon us! Our Ash Wednesday mass will take place on March 6 at 9:15 AM. 5G will be preparing the mass. Ashes will be distributed to all those in attendance.
Help Needed! Lenten Fish Dinner Volunteering -- Wondering how to observe your Lenten obligation this year? Looking to DO something rather than give something up? The St. Christopher/St. Patrick Parish Knights of Columbus have invited our school community to volunteer with them to put on their annual Lenten Fish Dinners! This is a wonderful service opportunity that benefits the parish, the school, and you! (For our participation, the Knights will donate a share of the proceeds to the school!)
The dinners run for six Friday evenings from March 9 through April 12 in the St. Christopher church hall. There are a number of volunteer times, dates, and opportunities available. The Knights have set up two "teams" that would alternate weeks. Team A would be assigned to March 8, March 22, and April 5. Team B would be assigned to March 15, March 29, and April 12.
To volunteer for Team A, please click HERE.
To volunteer for Team B, please click HERE. Thank you!
NEXT WEEK! February Vacation – February vacation will run from this Saturday, February 23 through March 3! Have a great week off!
NEW! March Early Release – We will have an early release on March 8 at 12:30 PM so our teachers may attend a professional development workshop. There will be NO After Care.
NEW! STEM Day and Night -- Our fantabulous STEM Day will be, March 14…and we can’t wait! We have an exciting group of wonderful volunteer speakers from a variety of STEM fields who will be visiting with our students on the morning of March 14. In the afternoon, classrooms will be finishing up their STEM projects and setting up their displays for the evening STEM Fair. Families are invited to return to school from 5:30-7:00 PM to visit the classrooms and see the projects, as well as visit with our STEM guests in the hallways, and do some fun STEM experiments! Please join us! (FYI – If our STEM Day is snow out like last year, we have scheduled a Snow Day for March 28!)
NEW! After Care in 1st Grade – The parish is once again holding their terrific Fish Dinners on Fridays during Lent, so our After Care will be relocated to 1st grade on all Fridays during this period. This will run from March 15 through April 12. Please go to the 1st grade doors to pick up your children!
In addition, After Care will be held in 1st grade on March 12 due to a parish event in the church hall.
NEW! Stations of the Cross – Our weekly observance of the Stations of the Cross will begin after February vacation. Please check the calendar above for upcoming dates and times.
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Auction News -- Our 15th Annual St. Christopher School Auction will be here before you know it! The “St. Chris Rocks” Auction will take place on Saturday, March 23 at Sky Meadow Country Club…and we need your help! Please consider getting involved in any of the following ways:
UPDATED! Item Wish List: The Auction Committee has put together a “wish” list of items they need for this year’s Auction! If you are looking to donate, but just don’t know what to give, please consider any of the following:
- Southwest Airlines Gift Card (any amount) to add to our Girls Weekend package!
- $20 - $30 Uber/Lyft gift cards (also for the Girls Weekend package!)
- Bruins Tickets
- Tupelo Music Hall tickets HEREfor John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band (of the 1983 Eddie & the Cruisers movie fame!)
- $25 - $50 gift cards from Exxon, Mobil, Shell, or Irving
- $10 - $25 Target gift cards
- $15 - $25 Michael's or AC Moore gift cards
- $25 - $50 restaurant gift cards (local or chain)
- Yeti tumblers, bottles, mugs, bottle openers, etc. (no cooler needed!)
- Pampered Chef items
- Rodan and Fields items
- Norwax items
- Launch and Altitude gift cards of any denomination
- Baskets from our Basket Sign-Up Genius HERE(or a custom basket!)
Donations this week include:
Backyard Movie Night
Teeth Whitening and Tanning Baskets from Platinum Tan
Autographed Red Sox baseball
$35 Papa Gino’s Gift Card
And more! Check out the list HERE!
Business Participation: We love to have local and national businesses participate in the Auction through item donations, program advertisements, and sponsorships! This is a great opportunity for businesses to reach over 200 potential patrons! Chat with your boss, ask your barber, talk with your dry cleaner, reach out to your dog groomer….almost any local business is happy to participate! If you need an Auction information packet to pass along to a local business, you can download the Auction packet on the school website HERE or contact Marta at [email protected] for a printed copy. Thank you!
Thank you to these current sponsors:
The Aquino Family – Silver Sponsor
St. Joseph Hospital – Bronze Sponsor
Catholic Medical Center – Copper Sponsor
Center for Physical Therapy and Exercise – Copper Sponsor
Drs. Franklyn & Francesca Liberatore, DDS – Copper Sponsor
The Valade Family – Copper Sponsor
Business Cents Back Office Solutions – Copper Sponsor
Advertising -- Program advertising runs from $50 to $250. Every Auction attendee receives a program for the evening. Because the program describes EVERY Live Auction item in detail, these are guaranteed to be read by everyone!
Thank you to our current advertisers:
Platinum Tan
Forcier Contracting and Building Services
Kalil and Kress Dentistry
PAL Force Football and Cheerleading
Catholic Medical Center
Literacy Learning Solutions, LLC
Knights of Columbus Insurance – Kevin Brown
Auction Committee Meetings: Our Auction planning is in high gear! Many hands make light work…please consider joining us at our next Auction Committee meeting on March 4 at 7:00 PM at Margarita’s!
UPDATED! Ticket Purchases: Seats are selling fast…and we are limited to only 225 guests! Get your seat today! To reserve your seat, return the RSVP card to the school with your payment (and be sure to make your meal selection on the reverse side of the RSVP card!) or you can also click HERE to purchase your ticket online. Tables of 10 or 12 can be also reserved ahead of time by sending a list of attendees to Marta at [email protected] or Ellen Valade at [email protected].
NEW! Ticket for a Teacher Sponsors – Aren’t our teachers GREAT? Thank them for a job well done by being a Ticket for a Teacher sponsor! Our teachers work hard all day, every day in the classroom…they deserve a night out! To be a Ticket for a Teacher sponsor, simple complete the RSVP form HERE and select Ticket for a Teacher. Many thanks to those who have already sponsored our teachers:
Mark & Jane Gill
Patrick & Joan McCabe
Skip & Tara Stolz
Vlad & Theresa Yasevich
Tom & Mary Popik
Alejandro Mirles & Liza Tirado-Calzada
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NEW! St. Patrick’s Day – We’ll be wearin’ the green on our St. Patrick’s Day Free Dress day on Monday, March 18! Students should wear green and white!
NEW! Used Book Sale – It may seem a looong ways away, but our Parent Group wanted to remind parents to save used books, cd’s, and dvd’s for the Used Book and Uniform Sale in May! If you are doing a little after-Christmas cleaning (or pre-Spring cleaning?), please keep the sale in mind! We accept donations of both children’s and adult’s book and media. All books and media are sold for 50¢ each and all students will visit the sale! Donations can be brought to the school after April vacation!
NEW! Lifetouch Spring Portraits – Lifetouch will return on Wednesday, March 20 for our Spring Portraits. This is a Dress UP Day…all students should wear their Easter finest! No pre-orders are taken for these portraits and parents will receive proof copies of the photos later in April. This is a one-time event, so there will be no retakes for absent students.
NEW! Bishop Guertin Music in Our Catholic Schools Concert -- March is Music In Our Schools Month, so Brian Starck, band director at Bishop Guertin High School has organized a "Music in Our Catholic Schools Concert" to take place in the Bishop Guertin High School Gym on the evening of Tuesday, March 26th. The bands, Fiddle Squads and choruses from Saint Christopher will join with music groups from Nashua Catholic Junior High School, Presentation of Mary Academy, and Bishop Guertin. Each group will perform on its own, and the evening will conclude with all the student musicians performing together in a stirring performance of "What A Wonderful World."
NEW! Forgotten Lunches – Just a friendly reminder that students who forget their lunch receive a bagel and cream cheese, along with any available sides. To make it fair for everyone, there are no exceptions. Please do not count on your child receiving the Hot Lunch of the day as we only order the number of meals we need to accommodate those who order through Boonli. A charge for the meal will be added to your Boonli account. This long-standing policy helps us to monitor inventory and keep our costs down. Thanks so much for your help with our Hot Lunch program!
Yearbook News – Yearbook information went home with all oldest and only students last week! All orders are due by Friday, March 8. The yearbook is a wonderful memento of the year at St. Chris and features portraits and photos of ALL students, from PreK through grade 6! Please click HERE to download the information and order form! Note: Yearbooks for 6th grade students are automatically included in the 6th grade graduation fee. However, any personalization, personal messages, or sponsorships must be paid for separately.
Calling all Box Tops! -- Now‘s the time to bring in all the Box Tops your family has been collecting! The next submission deadline is just around the corner, so be sure to have your child drop them off in the bin next to the computer lab. Every little bit helps! Send them in today!
Financial Aid Applications for 2019-2020 – As always, our goal is to make a St. Christopher education affordable for any family! To that end, applications for Financial Aid for the 2019-2020 school year are open and will run through March 15 and all families in need are encouraged to apply as soon as possible. All oldest and only students were sent home with a packet of information regarding the Financial Aid process today. The packet can also be accessed HERE. Please read the information carefully. All families interested in financial aid MUST follow the packet instructions or aid will not be given. If you have any questions, please contact either Mrs. Clarke at [email protected] or Business Manager Murrayann Abucewicz at [email protected].
Parish Support Financial Aid -- If your child is entering grades 1 through 6 and you are an active member of a parish in the Diocese of Manchester, you may be eligible for Parish Support. This financial aid available through this program is substantial, and worth applying for if you qualify…this year’s support was $1,006 per student! The Diocesan Support Program requires the timely identification of families who meet the minimum diocesan support criteria and qualify for the supported student tuition rate.
The minimum support criteria include:
- registration in a parish or mission;
- contributor of record in a parish or mission; and,
- active participation in the life of a parish or mission.
All three criteria must be met and verified by the Pastor as indicated by his signature on the Supported Student Form. The form should also be stamped with the parish seal. It is the RESPONSIBILITY of the parent, after the signature of the pastor is obtained, to return the signed form to the school by March l, 2019.
Supported Student forms are available from Jackie Langenfeld at the school office or can be downloaded HERE.
NOTE: If your child received the supported student rate for the 2018-2019 school year, you do not need to fill out another Supported Student Form. The names of those students who are currently supported will be forwarded to the pastors, and the pastors will notify the school whether or not the student is still eligible for support. The school will then notify the parents of the pastor’s decision.
Diocesan Excellence in Education Awards: The successes of our Catholic schools and their students would not be possible without the selfless support of committed educators, administrators, clergy, and lay partners in the community. This year, the Diocese of Manchester is holding its second annual Recognizing Excellence Awards Gala at the Grappone Conference Center in Concord on Thursday, June 20, 2019. All are invited to attend this exciting event to officially honor the School Leader of the Year, Clergy Member of the Year, Community Partner of the Year and most especially our Teacher of the Year.
Nominations from the St. Christopher community are now being accepted. To nominate someone you think deserves to receive this special recognition for this year, please read the award descriptions HERE.
The deadline for nominations is March 1, 2019. If you have any questions, please feel free to call the Catholic Schools Office at (603) 663-0140.
NEW! Youth Ministry News:
Middle School Youth Rally – We might learn a lot about Jesus, but what does it feel like to actually open your heart to Him? If you’d like to find out, come join us for the Diocese of Worcester’s Middle School Rally on April 7. All 6th-8th graders are welcome. Please return the permission slips to Emily or the parish office by 3/17 if you’d like to come with us.
For any questions, email Emily Murphy at [email protected].
Vacation Bible School Save the Date!!! St. Christopher Parish’s popular Vacation Bible School (VBS) with run from July 29-August 2, 2019! This year’s theme is ROAR! 2019: Life is Wild ~ God is Good. Registration forms are included in this week’s paper News ! Children ages 4 (entering pre-K) to Grade 5 are invited to come join us for a GRRReat time at Vacation Bible School this summer! We will travel to the African Savannah, a safari into the Bible, where we will sing, dance, create and play as we learn that even when our life gets WILD, God is always good! And we Trust in Him! We will need many adult helpers for the Safari trip of a lifetime! Please consider sharing your special talent! Email [email protected] for more information or to volunteer!
Happy Hearts Day Care Summer Camp Openings – Linda Rousseau of Happy Hearts Day Care, located across the street from the school, has openings for children age 6 to 11 in her summer camp. Activities include daily field trips, hiking, swimming, playgrounds, nature preserves, restaurants. $175 per week, lunch and snacks included. Please call Linda Rousseau at 880-6575 if interested.
Shroud Encounter: Experience the Mystery -- The Shroud of Turin, unknown to many, is believed to be the burial cloth of Jesus. Shroud Encounter is a production of the Shroud of Turin Education Project, Inc. and will be presented by international expert Russ Breault on Sunday, March 3, from 2pm-4pm, at Immaculate Conception Church, 216 E. Dunstable Rd., Nashua, NH. Admission is $10 (under 18 and Clergy is free.) Tickets available at the parish office and gift shop. For more information, please call 603-888-0321, or visit https://iccnashuanh.org/shroud.
Hot Lunch Schedules – Thank you to everyone who stepped up to volunteer for the Hot Lunch program! Your help is MUCH appreciated. Volunteers for the next week are below:
Thursday, February 21
Kathleen Kenosian
Tania Isenberger
Danielle Pray
Friday, February 22
Melissa Sprague
Tracey Bradshaw
Kate Aquino
Monday, February 25 – Friday, March 1
No School – February Vacation
Monday, March 4
Cindy Reardon
Tara Canaway
Katie Osborn
Rochelle Roberts
Tuesday, March 5
Emily Uong
Joe Lamere
Jennifer Fisher
Wednesday, March 6
Beth Dargin
Ginny Dargin
Jessica MacDonald
Eswar Sabapathy