| | | | Dear Friends,
When you think of Halloween, what comes to mind? For a lot of people, Halloween has become synonymous with candy, costumes, scary stuff, and pumpkins. But do you know the religious connection to the holiday? The word Halloween itself is a contraction of "Hallowed evening". Hallowed is an old English word for "holy" — as in "Hallowed be Thy Name", in the Lord's Prayer. All Saints Day, celebrated on November 1, is the day on which Catholics celebrate all the saints, known and unknown. The vigil or eve of this feast, October 31, is Halloween. The purpose of Halloween is to prepare us for All Saints Day by remembering and celebrating those saints. All Saints Day, Sunday, November 1 is a holy day of obligation. Celebrating this special feast day by attending Mass is a wonderful way to honor the saints
MINIMUM DAY
Next Monday, October 24, is the fourth-Monday-of-the-month minimum day dismissal. Don't forget we dismiss at 12:15 (K-3) and 12:30 (4-8) that day. Yes, we will have extended care beginning immediately at the end of the shortened school day. Extended Care will offer a pizza lunch for those staying for $5.00, which will be billed to your FACTS account.
STUDENT HOLIDAY
Plan ahead! Next Friday, October 28, is a holiday for all students, Preschool through 8th grade. The faculty will engage in an all day curriculum planning in-service on that day. | | FALL FESTIVAL/HALLOWEEN CARNIVAL Please consider joining us on Saturday, October 22nd for the Fall Festival/Halloween Carnival. Everyone will be there! Thank you to all who have donated items from the wish list. We still need more! Check out the wish list/donation form you are receiving today. We still need some more volunteers - Sign up here!. | | | | HALLOWEEN PARADE
Our K-8 Halloween parade, will begin at 11:00 in the schoolyard on Monday, October 31st. All are welcome to attend! When purchasing costumes for wearing to school for the parade, please consider the following: - Age appropriate
- Bathroom accessible
- Make up must be applied at home
- Shoes must be comfortable for walking
- No weapons of any kind
Also remember that Monday, October 31st is a minimum day with a 12:15/12:30pm dismissal. | | | | PENNY BUCKET CHALLENGE
The Student Council's "Penny Bucket" is underway! Keep sending those pennies in - they will continue to be collected through October 31st! 3rd grade is still in the lead with 70lbs, but 4th grade is catching up with 58.5 lbs! All of the pennies collected from now through the end of the month will be donated to the San Francisco Breast Cancer Emergency Fund in support of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. | | | SHOPAROO Do you Shoparoo!? Shoparoo is a fun and free app which turns pictures of your everyday shopping receipts into cash donations and sweepstakes entries for our school! Yep, it's that simple. Over the past 3 years, Shoparoo has donated over $3000 to our school! All you have to do is shop as you normally do, snap pictures of your grocery receipts with the app, and voila Just shop, snap, earn! Get started today: 1. Download the free Shoparoo app from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store 2. Select our school from the list and start taking pictures of your receipts - shop anywhere, buy anything! 3. You can even select a grade to support and have fun with grade competitions! There's no limit to how much money we can raise with Shoparoo - the more supporters, the more we will raise for our school. Check out shoparoo.com to learn more about this awesome app! | | | SCHOOL TOURS/APPLICATION FORMS Please continue to invite friends and relatives interested in St. Thomas More School to come to one of our school tours for prospective parents. Click HERE to reserve a place on one of the tours listed below: - Tuesday, November 8th at 9:00am
- Tuesday, November 22nd at 9:00am
DONATIONS
We are asking for donations of new and clean recycled paper. We find many uses for paper that is used on one side only. We appreciate your generosity. Keep those used ink cartridges coming! We recycle them through Cartridges for Kids and over the last few months this program has earned us over $150!
Finally, last week we were delighted to receive an unexpected $15,000 grant from The Outrageous Foundation. This is the fourth year in a row that they have chosen STM as one of the schools to receive this grant. The Outrageous Foundation has a strong commitment to Catholic education in the San Francisco Bay Area and has received recommendations regarding our wonderful school from a friend. Their foundation does not accept grant applications, but awards their funds based on referrals from others. Last year we were the recipients of a $10,000 grant from this foundation and the previous year, we also received $10,000. These funds will be earmarked for the sound and lighting equipment for our new stage. We are very grateful to Mr. and Mrs. Bob McGrath of The Outrageous Foundation for their continuing support of St. Thomas More School!
See you on Saturday!
Sincerely,
Marie Fitzpatrick
Principal | | | | | | | |
