St. Anthony of Padua Catholic School has initiated a $5 million capital campaign to replace our current 55-year-old school building. Please take a few minutes to watch our “Weaving a Bright Future” campaign video below.
If you feel moved to do so, please share the link with others who might be interested in learning more. If you are interested in contributing, read more here and contact Erena Allen, Stewardship Director, at (864) 331-2630 or weavingabrightfuture@gmail.com to arrange a tour.
K3 and K4 Preschool Program Student Applications for the 2011-2012 school year are now being accepted! This program is grant funded, creating low costs to families. In addition, the programs use an advanced HighScope Curriculum and are in partnership with Greenville First Steps.
The St. Anthony of Padua Catholic School preschool program runs from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., with a Late-Stay Program offered from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Come by our school at 309 Gower Street today to pick up a student application and tour the school, or call Sister Catherine at 864-271-0167.
In 2010, the U.S. Bishops’ Secretariat of Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations initiated a new website, For Your Vocation, to be a resource for both laity and clergy in the promotion of vocations. The site has two goals:
- To help individuals hear and respond to the call by God to the priesthood or consecrated life, and
- To educate all Catholics on the importance of encouraging others through prayer and activities to promote vocations.
Site elements include discernment resources for men and women, respectively, aids for promoting a vocation culture within the home, and a range of tools for educators, youth leaders and vocation directors including prayers, videos, best practices, lesson plans and vocation awareness programs.
In response to Pope Benedict XVI’s 2010 Theme for the World Day of Prayer for Vocations, Witness Awakens Vocations, the site also hosts videos of priests and religious men and women giving witness to their vocations, as well as testimonies from family members.
ForYourVocation.org exemplifies the Vatican’s embrace of new communications media. In his message for the 44th World Day of Communications, Pope Benedict XVI challenges clergy to employ the “latest generation of audiovisual resources (images, videos, animated features, blogs, websites)” to put the media “ever more effectively at the service of the Word.”
The launch of the site will be promoted through social media forums. Facebook users can become “eVangelizers” for the cause. By becoming an eVangelizer, one can connect others to the Website’s blog posts.
Congratulations to Fifth Grader Adrianna Vandross. Recently she was named Greenville County’s Grand Prize Winner for her Red Ribbon Poster. Adrianna was honored at County Square on December 9. She was treated to lunch and received a $100 prize. Her teacher Donna Barkey, classmates, and the entire school applaud Adrianna on her award!
From our Annual Report:
With immense gratitude, we thank our supporters, benefactors, donors, and God-driven friends. Thanks to your gifts we were able to provide St. Anthony of Padua School children with a year filled with excellent learning activities.
Major events: 2009-2010 found us celebrating success at the Carolina First Center with an International Fest, which raised $80,000. Under Joe Vilardo’s direction, hundreds of folks were involved in planning, gathering materials, decorating, and attending. This event was even more critical than we realized, as the economy forced foundations to reduce their funding. We featured programs that kept everyone busy all year, including Open House, Safety Day, Talent Show, Christmas Pageant, University Night, Black History, Homework Habits and Hugs, a Fashion Show, Career Day, Arts & Music Festival, and, finally, a Family Picnic.
New Programs: With revitalized faith in Divine Providence we were able to increase our Parent Involvement substantially, and recruited a number of volunteers for the activities above. In addition to the Faculty’s successes in the classrooms each day, Marie Weisser kept us on the move with well planned and executed Field Trips. No small task when you consider our dependence on The Trolley! Our first ever All-School outing was a visit to the new Children’s Museum.
Achievements: Once again First Steps awarded St. Anthony’s a grant for our K3 and K4, enabling us to participate in a Clemson University research project. The Sisters of Charity Foundation fell in love with our Elder Buddy Program and, thanks to Tara Mendes and her helpers, our K5 and 1st Graders made new friends and renewed acquaintances with returning “Elders.”
Our Extended Care Program rejoiced in our well-prepared Chess Team winning various competitions. Additionally, our Boy and Girl Scout Troops enjoyed outings and gave enthusiastic service in community projects.
The Notre Dame Club of the Carolinas selected Donna Barkey, our Fifth and Sixth Grade Teacher to attend a weekend with her peers at the University of Notre Dame in celebration of their profession. Donna is also the founder of our new Student Council!
In March, our Faculty and Staff joined with the other 29 Catholic Schools of the Diocese of Charleston to honor those who have given years of service to our schools. Miss Carolyn Lenhardt, with her 35+ years at St. Anthony’s, was a top level honoree! Our teachers, along with those of all 29 Schools, then participated in the first-ever 3-day Conference. Imagine the thrill of being one of only five schools in the country to receive the NCEA Outstanding Board Award at the April National Convention in Minneapolis!
Thanks to Sally Cade, our PTO President, and Sister Mary Jane, our Safe Environment Coordinator, we were awarded a Safe School banner in recognition for all the activities carried out to enhance our children’s safety.
St. Anthony’s 2003 graduates made us proud as they received their High School Diplomas from high schools in Greenville County this June with college plans in hand!
Besides those already mentioned, we were blessed by funding from MANY other sources, as you can see from our Thank You list. Whether the gift was large or small – in the form of time, talent, or treasure – you made a difference in the lives of the Children of St. Anthony’s School and we are extremely grateful.
Thank you for your courageous support!
- Sr. Catherine Noecker, OSF
Greenville County First Steps presented St. Anthony of Padua Catholic School with a pledge of $85,000 to expand K3 and K4 programs for the 2010-2011 school year.
The classes will operate on a Perry Preschool Model, which combines the classroom setting with the child’s home setting. This is part of a three-year study between the High/Scope Educational Foundation and Clemson University that focuses on curriculum and home visiting.
Classes will be held from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 pm, Monday through Friday, with after class care available on site until 6:00 p.m. for a fee.
The classes will have small numbers of students for more individualized attention. The teachers are High/Scope Curriculum trained. Classroom teachers will do a weekly home visit with the child and parent or guardian. The home visit will include a variety of learning activities.
Tonight is the big night! It’s Christmas in July Fest at the Carolina First Center. And, we’re ready to celebrate and raise funds for our school. (This also includes lots of dancing!)
The event is sold out – in fact, it sold out earlier this summer. That’s just how we roll.
Registration is still open for our “Gardening and Growing” summer camp scheduled for June 9 through June 23 at St. Anthony School. Your child will enjoy two weeks of fun – learning to garden and growing in faith! For more information, contact Cheryl Baxley at 864.271.0167.
St. Anthony of Padua Catholic School recently was named Safe Kids School for 2010 by Safe Kids Upstate. This organization is led by the Greenville Hospital System Children’s Hospital.
To be considered a Safe Kids School, we had to successfully complete five of eleven safety initiatives offered by Safe Kids Upstate. A few of those initiatives included participation in a Student Safety Patrol program and a Fire Safety program, as well as hosting a PTO meeting that featured safety topics.
Sister Mary Jane Reisdorf leads our Safety Program. She, along with other 2010 Safe Kids School safety staff and leadership, were honored at a breakfast earlier this month.
We’d like to thank Katherine Dyer, City People Writer at the The Greenville News for writing about our multi-generational Elder Buddies program. Here’s her article below:
Kathy Peot, 67, said that on the day she returned to St. Anthony of Padua Catholic School after a 2-month absence due to open-heart surgery, kindergartner A.J. Calderon scampered immediately up to her and exclaimed, “Where have you been? I thought you were lost!”
It was a small exclamation that carried huge implications.
“It just melted me,” Peot said.
Peot is both a school volunteer and participant in the school’s Elder Buddies program, a tutoring and companionship initiative pairing K-5 and first-grade students at St. Anthony with adults, most of them ages 50 and above, from the community.
Peot recalls with humorous inflection that at the start of the school year, Calderon, one of her two assigned “buddies,” asked her point-blank if she “had” to be his buddy “every time.” His spontaneous and genuine outburst that day in the hallway, months later, revealed to her the value of her participation in the program.
“Really and truly you just connect with the kids,” Peot explained.
The Elder Buddies program, which will wrap up its second year at St. Anthony of Padua today, is funded by an $11,900 grant from the Sisters of Charity Foundation and coordinated at the school largely through the efforts of kindergarten teacher Tara Cabe.
She explains that the program’s goal is to create community and business connections as well as multi-generational relationships. Elder Buddy volunteers are recruited and selected with help from Catholic Charities, and every participant, Mendes-Cabe emphasizes, completes a mandatory virtues training course before the school year begins.
Over the course of the year, Elder Buddies meet with the children four times as a group during school and correspond as pen-pals during time apart. They create seasonal crafts like Thanksgiving corn-husk votives and Christmas ornaments and have cruised downtown Greenville by trolley, searching for the Mice on Main and touring Marble Slab Creamery.
Today, the buddies will decorate picture frames and T-shirts to highlight their shared experiences from the year. Students will keep the T-shirts, and Elder Buddies will take home the picture frames.
“Everybody leaves with something,” said Mendes-Cabe. And not just crafts-wise.
Peot said she’s certainly gained an appreciation for the intellects and strong values she’s seen in the children, and she wishes the program allowed her to spoil her buddies even more – as if they were her own grandchildren.
Mendes-Cabe notes the social and curricular benefits of the program for students as well. She’s been excited to see them draw connections from class lessons in the experiences with their buddies.
“They’re also exposed to individuals with different interests, capabilities and talents,” she said. “I think it’s a really good social piece. We don’t always have to be perfect, we don’t always have to be good at everything. Some of us are short, some of us are tall. Some may have a disability, some may not. So it’s just a really good eye-opener and a way for us to help teach our children to respect not only our community but others around us.”
(Written by Katherine Dyer, The Greenville News)