Good morning and Happy Saturday you A-W-E-S-O-M-E Hurricanes!
It's the loooong weekend so we'll keep this short so you can get to enjoying your time with your family, some added rest or adventure.
Please find attached, our Hurricane 'WEEKLY' Newsletter for May 22nd - 26th, 2023. In this issue, we attempted to add as many dates as possible - up until the very last day of school, but keep checking-in weekly as dates are continually added or modified.
Thanks for everyone's participation in our Drumming Workshop on Friday. Staff and students had big smiles on their face and enjoyed their time together - it was a powerful experience indeed. Our Nigerian friend and guest visitor Babarinde "Baba" Williams, brought 100 djembe drums, a rope-tuned skin-covered goblet-shaped drum played with bare hands, originally from West Africa. The name of the djembe comes from the saying "Anke djé, anke bé" which translates to "everyone gather together in peace" and defines the drum's purpose. And that' what we certainly did! Students were given opportunities to cheer each other on to the beat of the drum, play along to songs like the 2010 World Cup of Soccer Theme Song, "Waka Waka" sung by Shakira, and really just build community by working together - relieve some stress - improve our mental wellness - and learn various aspects of making music such as tempo, rhythm and so much more. Thank you Hurricanes to your openness to learning new things and cultures. Also a special thank you to Baba for bringing your contagious joy, enthusiasm, and knowledge!
On another note, we really want to extend another heartfelt thanks to parent-volunteer, Elise Ingram. Mrs. Ingram concluded her presentations to the classes about the life cycle of a chicken on Friday. Mrs. Ingram spent everyday at our school for the past 3 weeks inviting classes to learn the process of the "egg to the chicken." GOOD NEWS - it all culminated at the end of this week with a record number of baby hatchlings. Our students were so thrilled to witness the whole process from beginning to end and the highlight was obviously holding and passing the baby chicks around - so cute and fluffy! Thank you Mrs. Ingram, we appreciate you!
Finally, we celebrated 2 awesome events this week. First, our Class of 2023 enjoyed every minute of their year-end trip to Quebec! So many stories and memories created that will stay with them forever. Thank you to Mr. DiBattista for his organization of the trip and to all the staff who took time away from their own families to attend the trip and keep our kiddos safe. Secondly, our Special Olympic Athletes had an amazing day on Wednesday at the St. James track and were outstanding ambassadors for our school community! Hundreds of athletes from both the Wellington Catholic and Upper Grand District School Boards participated and were cheered on throughout the day! We are so proud of our our Hurricanes athletes and their peer mentors/coaches! With that all said, there are "transactional" and transformational" events in our lives. These were without-a-doubt both the latter! We are in gratitude that both of these TRANSFORMATIONAL events were able to take place!
In conclusion, we wish that all of you have a wonderful long weekend!. Please continue to encourage our young people to pray the Hail Mary throughout the month of May, and to pray for each other that we can continue to "Be the Light" for each other and for the world. Remember, we don't create the light - God does. Yet He needs us to spread and reflect it, he needs us to spread Him throughout! Try to put GOODNESS back into others and into society, that same goodness that was put into you Hurricanes!
Most importantly, take care of yourselves and each other Hurricanes! See y'all back on Tuesday, May 23rd!