Submitted by VCES parent Laura Kuhner

Interested in raising funds for your child’s school while doing everyday shopping? You can buy your grocery, restaurant, movie, coffee house cards, and much, much more!

Although we are no longer selling at the Scrip table, the Scrip team is now accepting orders on the last Monday of each month. This month orders can be submitted until Monday, March 19 at 8 a.m. Drop your completed forms including payment off at the VCEMS office, or email your order. Download the new 2012 Scrip form here or pick one up in the VCEMS office.

For more detailed information about the Scrip program, click here.

Thank you so much for your continued support to the Scrip fundraising program!

The Scrip Team

Submitted by VCES Principal Joe Manning

We recognized the winners of our school-level handwriting contest this week. One student from each grade (Grades 1-5) was selected as our school winner for the Zaner-Bloser National Handwriting Competition. These students were presented with certificates, and their handwriting entries have advanced to the next level in the Zaner-Bloser competition. Should any of our entries advance further, we will notify the school community. The follow students are our winners:

1st: Samantha Tan
2nd: Kayla Than
3rd: Carly Isselmann
4th: Natalie Tan
5th: Amber Co

Congratulations to all of you!

Dear VCES Community,

As many of you know, we are in the midst of our admissions process for new families. I want to thank you for spreading the word about Valley Catholic to your family, friends, and coworkers. Prospective family after prospective family has shared with me the excitement and energy you have for this community. Thank you for letting others know about the great things we have going on here! I am glad to hear of the passion so many of you have for our school, and we are so pleased that you are choosing to share that passion with others. We love it when our community grows!

You may have heard from your child that I share a weekly joke with them each Friday. As I walk around our school throughout any given day, I hear four or five jokes from our students that they would like me to consider telling over the announcements. These jokes certainly keep me laughing, but I often do not have a great way of remembering all of them. This past week, Luke Harvey (1F) had an excellent idea of placing a “joke box” in the office. He and his mother brought the box to the office this week, and it is now in place. If your child has a joke that he or she would like me to consider, please encourage them to tell it to me but to also write it down and submit it to the new box near Mrs. Honeyman’s desk. Luke’s suggestion and box comes at a perfect time. I am nearly out of jokes!

As we continue on our Lenten journey, please consider joining us this week for Mass or for the Thursday parent prayer service. At the parent prayer service, we will walk the Stations of the Cross that were recently installed in our building. We really look forward to offering this opportunity to our students and parents and are hopeful that they are able to provide a meaningful opportunity for reflection this Lent.

See you all next week!

Wishing you the peace of Christ,

Joe Manning
Principal

THE WEEK AHEAD:

Monday
Recess Supervisors: MaryBeth Wolfe & Peter James

Tuesday
Early Dismissal – 2:05 p.m.
Recess Supervisors: Natalia Gurhiy, Janice Harman, & Loc Nguyen

Wednesday
Mass (2C) – Convent Chapel – 9:35 a.m.
Recess Supervisors: Rajendran Manickavach & Laura Kuhner

Thursday
Parent Prayer Service: The Stations of the Cross – Convent Chapel – 8 a.m.
Principal for the Day (last year’s auction item): Alexa Schultz (4F)
Recess Supervisors: Laura Schultz & Venu Meenege

Friday
Recess Supervisors: Darien Curl, Joanna Beale, and Nirusha LeMouel

Submitted by Auction & Events Coordinator Sharla Tinsen

Calling all expert designers & crafty aficionados…We need you!

You are invited to the Silent Auction Basket-Wrapping Party on Saturday, March 17, 2012. 

We will be packaging all our donated items into baskets & creative containers.  They will be wrapped for presentation at the 2012 All That Jazz auction.  Bring your blow dryer & creativity.

Date:    Saturday, March 17, 2012

Time:   10 a.m to 5 p.m.

Where: Valley Catholic’s former Elementary School, room 104 (Mrs. Rabe’s old math room, entry level)

Food & drink provided:  Corned beef & cabbage, drinks & snacks 

If you have any special dietary requirements, please pack your own lunch.  We need four teams of four to help package & wrap all the auction goods.  Please R.S.V.P to Sharla or call 503.718.6485.

 Thank you for your help!

Sharla Tinsen
Cell: 503.329.4431

Submitted by VCES Principal Joe Manning

The Elementary School students will be supporting two different projects—one local and one international—during Lent.

On the local level, we will be collecting new adult-sized socks and lightly used backpacks and shoes to support the Downtown Chapel (St. Andre Bessette), a Catholic church located on W. Burnside St. in Portland. The Downtown Chapel ministers to homeless people and it runs a foot care program which is always in need of socks. We will have collection boxes set up in our school entry way. Our collection began on Monday, February 27, and will extend through Thursday, March 22. Student representatives will personally deliver the items to the Downtown Chapel.

On the international level, we will be supporting and learning about a Portland-based program that aims to enhance educational opportunities globally in memory of genocide victims and in honor of survivors. The Golden Leaf Education Foundation aims to “foster peace and goodwill through renovating existing schools, building new schools, and providing educational supports such as school supplies, supplements to teacher salaries and providing student uniforms” specifically in Cambodia.

Throughout Lent, our Student Council members will be sharing information about these programs with our student body.

Additionally, our Free Dress for $1 Days in the next two months will support these organizations.

To see the story written by VCS parent Jill Lovely and orginally featured in the Hillsboro Argus in their Private Schools issue, click here.

Good luck to all the students who will be competing in the speech tournament this weekend!

Submitted by ELS Program Coordinator Janet Lynn

Fat Tuesday was celebrated by the children at the Early Learning School by attending the Valley Catholic Auction Kick-off Assembly! Some classrooms made glittered masks with green, gold and purple, while others came to the lobby for a Mardi Gras dance party! Beads were provided for all the children and we all enjoyed our day of celebration as we look forward to the Lenten season.

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Dear VCES Community,

We marked the beginning of our Lenten journey this week with a beautiful Ash Wednesday Mass. In the Catholic tradition, as we are marked with ashes on Ash Wednesday, we are reminded to turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel. Then throughout the 40 days that precede the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection at Easter, we participate in abstinence, times of fasting, confession, and acts that strengthen our faith and improve ourselves in our relationships with others. Ultimately, the goal is to emerge from Lent a person of stronger faith than when we entered.

At our Mass, the closing hymn struck a chord with me because it captured the idea of Lent as an invitation. The song’s most notable lyrics were “Somebody’s knocking at your door. Oh, sinner, why don’t you answer? Somebody’s knocking at your door.” As I reflected in the moment in those final minutes of Mass, as the students sang so beautifully around me, I realized how remarkable of an invitation this knocking actually was. Jesus stands at the door and knocks, waiting patiently, allowing us the choice and freedom to welcome him in or to leave him outside of ourselves. We have the opportunity every day to open the door and let him in or to allow the door to remain closed. Further, the song’s lyrics ask us to think of a reason for why we choose not to answer the door. As I looked around the gym and into the faces of the students, staff, and parents gathered there, I could think of hundreds of reasons to answer that door. For it is in each one of us that Jesus lives. Opening that door, for me at least, indicates a joyful acceptance that God is present in all creation. How beautiful and how humbling to realize that Jesus desires to live within each of us!

Throughout the 40 days ahead, our school community will have the opportunity to grow in faith in a number of ways. New to our school this year is the Stations of the Cross reflection meditation walk that all of our students will have the opportunity to experience. Parents will also have the opportunity to join us on two occasions to complete this powerful and meaningful exercise to reflect on Jesus’ passion. For more information on our new Stations of the Cross, please see the article here. We will also devote attention throughout Lent to service to our community and world.

Enjoy the weekend.

Blessings,

Joe Manning
Principal

THE WEEK AHEAD:

Monday
Recess Supervisors: Sarah Spiering & Peter James

Tuesday
Early Dismissal – 2:05 p.m.
Free Dress for $1 Day – Money to Benefit Downtown Chapel (St. Andre Bessette Parish)
VCES VALOR Network Meeting – Room 211 – 6:45 p.m.
Recess Supervisors: Janice Harman & Loc Nguyen

Wednesday
Prayer Service (4P) – Convent Chapel – 9:35 a.m.
Recess Supervisors: Annie Jensen & Ken Mann

Thursday
Recess Supervisors: Joanna Beale & Mei Po Chiu

Friday
Recess Supervisors: Ivo Peev, Valerie Stecher, & James Noll

Olivia Silenzi--still trying for more!

Congratulations to our Valley Catholic CYO Swim Teams for their first-place overall finish in the CYO Championship Meet!! The season recently concluded with some exceptional results. Finishing first in their individual team divisions were the cub boys, cadet boys and cub girls. Cadet girls finished fourth.

Valley has won the overall championship eight out of the past nine seasons and 15 times since 1990.

Valley had seven swimmers with individual victories in their events and one relay win.

Individual Winners:

• Olivia Silenzi (3rd grade, Polliwog): 50m Free *new CYO record, 25m Breaststroke
• Iseult McMahon (6th grade, Cub): 100IM, 100m Free, 25m Fly
• Lara Spurgeon (6th grade, Cub): 25m Free, 50m Free
• Teddy Senecal (6th grade, Cub): 100IM
• Sean Calkins (8th grade, Cadet): 100IM *tied the CYO record, 100m Free
• David Spurgeon (8th grade, Cadet): 50m Free, 50m Breaststroke, 200m Free
• Joshua Yadao (7th grade, Cadet): 50m Fly

Relay Wins:

200 medley relay (Cadet boys): Albert Buchalski, David Spurgeon, Samuel Yates, Sean Calkins

For more detailed results, click on the following links:

• Polliwog Championships
• Division 1 Championships
• All-Star Meet

Submitted by Juliette Friel of CYO Camp Howard

CYO Lacrosse is offered for first- through eighth- grade boys and girls.

First- and second-graders will play at Jesuit on Saturday afternoons—both practices and games—starting on April 14 and lasting until early June. For an informational flyer, click here.

Third- through eighth-graders will begin practices on March 12th, with games beginning on March 31 and lasting until early June.  For an information flyer, click here.

Sign ups are going on now at cyocamphoward.org - click on lacrosse!