Greetings from Sister Kathleen

Dear Friends, Well, the Middle States visiting team for our school’s re-accreditation, Thanksgiving, and Christmas have come and gone. We came through with flying colors in the evaluation, we thought of all the people who may be hungry and collected boxes and boxes of food for them at Thanksgiving, and we adopted thirteen families as our Christmas project. One thousand dollars from our weekly Mission collections went for gift cards to the supermarket for these families. The students in our school, the Religious Education program, our Sisters and teachers bought clothes, toys, gift certificates and food for them. In the very active life of St. John the Evangelist School we just finished our weeklong celebration of Catholic Schools Week. Each year the National Catholic Education Association focuses all the Catholic schools throughout the nation on a theme that is central to the mission of Catholic schools. This year's theme is “Catholic Schools Light the Way.” For the past twenty-seven years that I have served as principal we have begun this week with an opening Liturgy and a reception honoring our grandparents and significant seniors. This year was no exception as grandparents from Pennsylvania, D.C., Virginia, New Jersey, and the surrounding area joined in the festivities. Besides having good conversation and food, our grandparents supported the various fundraisers we have to reach our endowment goal of one million dollars. The interest from this principal will be used for operating expenses of the school. Our next challenge is to set up a financial assistance scholarship fund to support those families who are having difficulty meeting the necessary tuition we have to charge in order for the school to exist. The rest of the week we celebrate our nation, students, faculty, staff, and students with educational and fun activities. As a parish school we are very mindful of the commitment of all of our parishioners to its existence and their support of it in every way. If you are a reader of this journal, know that you are considered to be a part of our school as well and are included in our daily prayers as a school community. As we look forward to a very early Lent and Easter we wish you good health and peace and a very Happy Easter. Sister Kathleen

St. John the Evangelist School ¦ 10201 Woodland Drive ¦ Silver Spring ¦ MD ¦ 20902