ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI

CATHOLIC SCHOOL

Fa the r Ca r l Hood , Pas to r Mrs . A l i c i a B rown , P r in c ipa l

Mrs . An ton ia Co rz ine , Ass t . P r inc ipa l Mrs . S tephan ie Jones , Ass t . P r inc ipa l

October, 2018 Volume 14, Issue 1

Dear SFA Families,

As I sit here looking out my window, I can’t help but smile, seeing that the leaves on the trees are finally beginning to change

into bright yellows,oranges, and reds. I was wondering if this year the leaves were going to change at all or if they might go

straight from green to brown and drop from the trees. With the seasons in Memphis, you just never know.

I’m smiling, you see, because where some of you may love the early blossoms of Spring or the hot happy Summer days, I

long for the Fall. I love college football and warm apple cider, pumpkin donuts, and long walks through the trails at Shelby

Farms with my husband. I love watching the squirrels dashing around to gather all the fallen acorns. I love hay rides and the

corn maze and don’t even get me started on It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! I get nostalgic, remembering as a

child helping my mom and dad rake up all the leaves in our yard, only to be able to run with joy and dive into the huge pile

with my sister and toss handfuls of the leaves back and forth at each other. To me, Fall is about remembering and re-

flecting on all the wonderful things I have been blessed with in my life.

This Fall, the first thing that jumps to the top of my list of blessings is having the privilege to be the principal of St. Francis of

Assisi Catholic School. I often have to pinch myself thinking about all of the amazing people who come together to make

SFA such a fantastic place. While I cannot say enough about how blessed I am to get to work with all of our amazing teachers

and staff or how much I love our students and how they make me smile, today I find myself reflecting on you, our families.

What incredibly supportive families we have! I’m truly astonished by our SFA community and how all of you bless us with

your gifts of time, treasure, and talent. On a daily basis, I can walk across our campus to find people volunteering at SFA in

the cafeteria, in the library, in our Spirit Shop, in helping the teachers prepare papers and run copies, driving on field trips,

organizing events like our Feast Day/Field Day and the Halloween Monster Mash Dance, cutting out Box Tops, collecting

Coke caps, decorating classrooms for parties, reading to our students, coaching sports teams and so much more. Some fami-

lies help our students by sharing what they do for a living to broaden the students’ knowledge of career choices or about the

bigger world around us. So many of our families supported our recent Best Bites of Memphis event by selling and purchasing

raffle tickets and event tickets and donating items for the silent auction by attending and bidding on the auction, or by setting

up and cleaning up after the event. And, of course, there are our families that join us at Mass and in our school chapel to help

our students learn to pray, to share our faith, and to know more about our God.

So, with all of that in mind, I want to thank you, OUR FAMILIES, for being such blessings to St. Francis of Assisi School in

every way, big and small. I want to take the time to encourage you, if you haven’t already gotten involved this school year, to

join in the fun with our SFA community.

Our next PTO meeting is at the end of the month on Tuesday, November 27th in the Activity Room at 8:00 am, right after

drop-off. Come and find out how you can become a more active member of our Timberwolf Pack in whatever capacity you

can. Not only will your children benefit, but I promise, so will you.

Yours in Christ,

Mrs. Alicia Brown

Page 2 ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI CATHOLIC SCHOOL

Congratulations to the First Quarter CHRISTIAN WITNESS Award Recipients

1st Grade: Noah Hoang, Elise Jenkins 2nd Grade: Angela Gonzalez, Luisana Mata, Brighton Sharp 3rd Grade: Payton Hunt, Reid Morgan, Claire Simoncic 4th Grade: Jillian Beatty, Emma Lockwood, Kaitlyn Muck 5th Grade: Carson Cheseldine, Bryce Curtis, Seth Dennie 6th Grade: Mason DeVine, Carson Kavin, Joseph Myers, Nicholas Sanders, Mary Spain, Gracie Workman 7th Grade: Olivia Baker, Emmy Brenner, Luke Horton, Lauren Mazeika, Conor Wells, Colin Woods 8th Grade: Gigi Claus, Valeria Esquivel, Magdalena Gore, Joseph McCusker, Bryce Scholten, Zoe Vales, Jacob Woods

Congratulations to the First Quarter HONOR ROLL Award Recipients

Principal’s Honor Roll 8th Grade: Ryan Beatty, John Carkeet, Sam Clark, Gigi Claus, Ryleigh Deeley, Janethzie Delgado, Lily Demilio, Emily Esnard, Valeria Esquivel, Rachel Gammill, Magdalena Gore, Sommer Griffis, Rachel Igharas, Kennedy Kattawar, Bridget Kennedy, Riley May, Samuel Morris, Joseph Opferman, Erika Perkins, Hannah Person, Cara Pirani, Farrah Rector, Jacob Ryan, Mark Schaffler, Michael Spain, Joshua St. John, Reagan Thomas, Zoe Vales, Vina Vedala, Madeline Wade, Michael Weber, Jacob Woods 7th Grade: Olivia Baker, Olivia Beattie, Ben Bosque, Emmy Brenner, Thomas Cantu-Leon, JR Clancy, Paige Corzine, Carlo Duran, Caitlin Flynn, Cristal Hernandez, Eva Hoch, Ben Kollasch, Lauren Mazeika, Gunnar Rawlings, Caroline Redding, Arturo Rodriguez, Katie Rogers, Kasey Rosenberger, Erica Ruoff, Lilly Sobalvarro, Sophia Tabrizi 6th Grade: Hannah Cravens, Mason DeVine, Mia Diaz, Gage Gallagher, Cooper Hartwein, Carson Kavin, Michaela-Grace Lopez, Meredith McCusker, Brittany Nguyen, Vivian Nguyen, Katie Schaffler, Kate Simoncic, Mary Spain 5th Grade: Lauren Adams, Ben Armada, Dylan Bloodworth, Natalee Campbell, Abigail Cantwell, Maddie Cluck, John Finkelstein, Sarah Juarez, Nicholas Mazeika, Azzurra Ongaro, Hayden Redding, Kate Sanders, Joseph Wilemon

Page 3 October, 2018

Second Honor Roll 8th Grade: Corey Campbell, Mikayla Ditto, Adrianna Thompson 7th Grade: Elena Hoch, Anna Huddleston, Adison Hunt, Evan Jones, Gracie Lamey, Tyee Parker, Colin Wilbon, Logan Wright 6th Grade: Gaby Caron, Joshua Green 5th Grade: Adrianna Sammons

SFA Students Are Honored at the Delta Fair!

Congratulations to the following SFA students whose artwork was honored at the

2018 Delta Fair Student Art Contest:

4th grader, Samantha Krog, 8th place ribbon for

her self portrait

5th grader, Ari Bichelman, 10th place ribbon for

his design with circles

8th grader, Mikayla Ditto 8th place ribbon for

her batik panda

First Honor Roll 8th Grade: Ethan Bernard, Hailey Bond, Max Clark, Roberto Guimaraes, Miller Filsinger, Charlie Harrell, Jaylon Hawkins, Annie Henry, Olivia Kovacs, Alexandra Lafferty, Isabella Maher, Jackson Parker, Gabriel Perez, Garrett Rosengarten, Burke Ryan, Bryce Scholten, Addison Stanford, Brenden Torres, Luke Wilemon, Sam Wilson 7th Grade: Olivia Abuelouf, Madison Berry, Justin Bowers, Ellie Cheseldine, Cael Coulombe, Claire Hollingsworth, Luke Horton, Jazmin Jaime, Sam Lopez, Hannah Luther, Joshua Miller, Stephanie Monisit, Clare Palasz, Wallace Peterson, Luke Schwegman, Allison Seaton, Jude Stark, Anna Claire Thweatt, Cecily Weiss, Conor Wells, Sara Whitehead, Blake Whitehorn, Edward Wilemon, Collin Woods 6th Grade: Karrington Davis, Reagan Gillen, Ethan Jaurigue, Ava Jeffrey, Michael Lucchesi, Nathan Meister, Ellis Morgan, Adam O’Brien, Roman Rawlings, Nicholas Sanders, Clairmarie Stotts, Emery Tempel, Ornella Villegas, Mallory Walker 5th Grade: Alex Abuelouf, Ari Bichelman, Bond Cheseldine, Bryce Curtis, Leonardo Duran, Vitor Guimaraes, Molly Flynn, Sara Fullen, Sofia Guadalupe, Alyssa Guinocor, Nicholas Hoang, Jack Kollasch, Oliver Leavitt, Joey Luther, Connor Martin, Jacob Miller, Jameson Parker, Cooper Reed, Ava Rosengarten, Luke Swearingen, Sarah Swearingen, Dominic Weiss

Page 4 October, 2018

A Beloved SFA Tradition

Students, faculty, and staff celebrated the feast day of our patron saint, Francis of Assisi, with a day of ser-

vice and fellowship on October 4th. The day began with Mass celebrated by Father Hood followed by a

blessing of pets, school-wide service projects, and finished with a fun-filled field day competition.

Each year, our parents are asked to provide loaves of bread, bologna, Halloween candy, toiletry items, tube

socks, and pet supplies for our community service projects. Some of you may not know what these items are

used for or whom they help. Once again, SFA students made a huge impact on some of the less fortunate

members of our community. Below is listing of all the projects that our students were able to complete with

your help! Thank you for supporting our school and giving our students the opportunity to see the difference

they can make in our community.

Many pets blessed

1,750 Sandwiches for St. Mary’s Soup Kitchen

480 Sandwiches for St. Vincent de Paul

612 Tray favors for the VA Hospital

145 “I Care” bags for St. Vincent de Paul

194 Stuffed socks for Catholic Charities

282 Halloween candy bags for Missionaries of Charity

48 Baby bags for Birthright

43 Placemats for Ava Maria Home

5 Boxes of toiletries for Catholic Charities and Methodist Hospital Outreach Program

26,000 can tabs were counted by our 3rd grade students for the Ronald McDonald House

Many bags of pet food, toys, bedding, and other supplies to benefit the St. Francis Animal Rescue and

Refuge

More Feast Day/Field Day Fun

SFA Students Collect Over 130,000 pull tabs for the

Ronald McDonald House!

This year, the students and faculty collected 130,149 pull tabs for the Ronald McDonald

House. Our school has been collecting pull tabs for the Ronald McDonald House since

2004 and to date has collected 4,472,061 pull tabs!

Let’s keep popping our tops for the Ronald McDonald House!

SFA Students Participate in Duke TIP Program

for Gifted Students

The Duke University Talent Identification Program (Duke TIP) is a non-profit organization

dedicated to serving academically gifted and talented youth. Duke TIP works with 7th grade

students, their families, and educators to identify, recognize, challenge, engage, and help

students reach their highest potential. Congratulations to the following SFA students who

qualified to participate in the 2018 Duke TIP Program:

Olivia Abuelouf Olivia Baker

Ben Bosque Emmy Brenner

Tommy Cantu-Leon JR Clancy

Paige Corzine Carlo Duran

Wallace Peterson Caroline Redding

Arturo Rodriguez Katie Rogers

Kasey Rosenberger Lilly Sobalvarro

Conor Wells