AN E-NEWSLETTER FOR BORGIA ALUMS
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STUDENTS PARTICIPATE IN MANY OUTREACH PROGRAMS
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A Culture of Service
During our 2017-2018 school year, our students performed over 19,000 hours of service. This is equivalent to 9.14 years of full time work!
In addition to the 100 community service hours required for each one of our students to graduate, our students also participate in many outreach programs over and above these hours. Here are just a few of these.
Blood Drive
This fall, our Student Council hosted a blood drive through Mercy Blood Donor Services. In total, 64 students gave unselfishly to make a big difference in the lives of others.
Borgia Campus Food Pantry
This past summer, Borgia started to stock our own walk up food pantry under the pavilion on the east side of our campus. This pantry is available for anyone to use or contribute to. We have found that is is used daily by members of our community in need of food. Several clubs, as well as many individual donors have contributed to this special ministry.
Box of Joy - Catholic Outreach
Through the Cross Catholic Outreach's Box of Joy program, our students packed Christmas gift boxes and sponsored the cost of its shipping to 72 children living in poverty in developing countries. This program enabled our students to deliver a "Box of Joy" to a child oversees who would otherwise receive nothing.
Dress Down Days
One Friday each month, our students are allowed to "dress down" for $1. The money collected from these dress down day benefits a different charity each month. So far this year, our students have donated over $3,000 to charities such as:
- Alzheimer's Association
- Compassion International
- Hope for Haiti
- Kids Against Hunger
- Leukemia/Lymphoma Society
- Melanoma Miles for Mike
- Rivals for a Reason
- United Way
Giving Tree
Our students also are participating in an Advent Giving Tree through the Pregnancy Assistance Center in Washington. Our students pick one of 100 ornaments with the name of a specific gift item. These items are wrapped and delivered to families in our community who have physical impairments and parents who are going through a hardship.
Glove and Sock Drive
Our students were given the opportunity to donate new pairs of gloves and socks or cash for this drive. The gloves and socks collected were given to the Peter and Paul Outreach Program in St. Louis for distribution among those served. The cash collected was presented to the Harvest Table in Washington who will purchase gloves and socks to distribute to their patrons.
The Halloween Candy Drive
Once again this year, we participated with the St. Louis City Play It Safe Halloween (Now in its 17th year, it has been taken over by the Boys and Girls Club of St. Louis.) We collected over 300 bags of fun sized candies to donate to the indoor event in St. Louis.
Harvest Table
Three times per year, our students prepare and serve a meal with the Harvest Table in Washington. This ministry offers a a free and open community meal served every Saturday 5-6 p.m. in the dining room of St. Peter's United Church of Christ - corner of Fifth and Market street. Their mission seeks to provide a nourishing meal in a safe and welcoming environment to all who desire to take part. In particular, those served are those who may be alone at mealtime, those who may be struggling to provide adequate food for their families, and those who may be unable to prepare meals for themselves.
Peter and Paul Community Services
For several years now, on the 8th of each month, our students travel to St. Louis to prepare and serve a meal as part of Peter and
Paul's meals program. This program is an ecumenical human service agency committed to providing transitional housing and supportive services to the homeless, especially those experiencing mental illness, HIV/AIDS or drug or alcohol addiction. Our group of volunteers provide a meal for up to 200 clients at Peter & Paul in the Soulard neighborhood.
Urban Plunge
In the spirit of the settlement house movement (an institution in an inner-city area providing educational, recreational, and other social services to the community they serve), our students undergo a short-term immersion experience in service to the client families and to the community.
Warner's Wrap Up
This annual drive is designed to help thousands of men, women and children who struggle and live in poverty in our region brave the cold temperatures. During the drive this year, our students helped collect over 1,000 new or gently used coats that will be distributed through Operation Food Search’s network of food pantries, schools, social service centers and shelters each year.
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Thank you to all who gave on #GivingTuesday. Your partnership with our school will have a huge impact on everything we do here at Borgia!!
If you were unable to participate in #GivingTuesday, please consider supporting us with a one time donation or pledge for this year. You can make your gift by clicking the button below or via Venmo @sfbrhs.
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2nd Annual Alumni Basketball Games
This year's alumni basketball games will be on April 6, 2019. All former varsity girls and boys basketball players are invited to play in this fundraising event to benefit the SFBRHS Athletic Association.
Detail and invitations will follow. In the meantime, if you have any questions, please contact Mike Sinnott at
[email protected]
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We'd like to thank you for the support you've given our Mega Raffle Sale so far! As of December 11, 3,312 tickets have been sold by students or mailed in with more sold tickets arriving each day. We have raised $82,800 thus far, but we still have a ways to go.
If our students sell their goal of 10 tickets by Tuesday, December 18, they'll be able to dress down during final exams and will receive a long sleeved t-shirt. In addition, if we sell 5,000 tickets by Friday, January 4, 2019, we will be awarded with an extra day off on Tuesday, January 22, making the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday a four-day weekend!
There are also individual prizes as the more you sell, the more you win. The top seller for each class will receive their choice of a $250 gift card, $250 in tuition credit or $250 in cash.
Those students who sell 20-29 tickets will receive a choice of a $50 gift card, tuition credit or cash. 30-49 tickets sold - $100, 50-69 tickets sold - $250, and 70+ tickets sold will receive their choice of $350 in tuition credit, cash or gift card.
Students selling the winning tickets will also receive free lunches for a week!
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November's Winners
November 1 - Valerie Perjak (sold by Joseph Perjak)
November 15 - Bethine Spaunhorst (sold by Luke Spaunhorst)
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HOLIDAY GREETINGS FROM OUR ADMINISTRATION
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Click the elf below to view a hilarious holiday greeting from our Administration. Fr. Kevin Schmittgens, President; Mrs. Pam Tholen, Principal, Mr. Todd Dempsey, Vice Principal, Mr. Chris Arand, Activities Director.
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Elizabeth Westhoff '14 Graduates from Truman State University as Valedictorian
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E
lizabeth Westhoff, SFBRHS Class of 2014, was recently recognized as valedictorian during her graduation on December 15 . This distinction was bestowed on her because she earned a 4.0 grade point average.
As part of her major in English, Elizabeth participated in an internship in the special collections division of the Truman State Library!
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Kelly (Lamb) Pollock '92
2018 Leader of Distinction in The Arts by YWCA Metro St. Louis
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Congratulations to Kelly (Lamb) Pollock '92 on being awarded the 2018 Leader of Distinction Award by the YMCA of Metro St. Louis. Kelly was honored with this award at a luncheon on December 6 at the St. Louis Union Station Hotel.
Each year the YWCA Metro St. Louis honors women for their outstanding contributions in the workplace and the community. Kelly was honored along with nine other inspiring regional leaders in education, philanthropy, government, science, non-profit work, entrepreneurship, corporate, and racial justice.
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Our Newest Little Knight - Leo Francis Eckelkamp
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One of the most recent members of the Borgia family arrived recently on November 18. Leo Francis Eckelkamp weighed 5 lbs. 12 oz. and has the most awesome parents with his mom being a member of our own faculty. Kayla (Kimminau) '08 and Christopher Eckelkamp '06 couldn't be prouder!
Leo's long heritage of Borgia grads includes his maternal grandparents, Lori (Kuchem) '79 and Thomas Kimminau '70 and his paternal grandparents, Glenda (Ruether) '77 and Jeff Eckelkamp '74.
Leo was named after his late, maternal great-grandfather, Leo Kuchem '53.
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Share your news with us!
As alumni, you're still part of the Borgia family. Please share the latest news, career milestones, engagements, marriages, births, and other updates. Not only are we proud of all of your accomplishments, other alums are interested too! Email
[email protected]
with your news/photos and it will be published in the alumni e-newsletter the following month.
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These are the shadows of things that have been.
That they are what they are, do not blame me!
I am presuming that you have all seen, in one form or another, the classic story of A Christmas Carol, the story of Ebenezer Scrooge and his conversion from being a miserly old fool to a warm hearted, kind fool. If you haven’t, what have you been doing? If you have, I have a quick question to ask you,
how do you envision the Ghost of Christmas Past??
The other ghosts that visit Scrooge are rather straightforward and clear-cut: Jacob Marley with his chains, Christmas Present with his vibrant beard, hearty laugh and torch, and even Christmas Future dressed in black with his ominous skeletal hand. But Christmas Past is a bit more problematic and ethereal. Sometimes it is an actress. Sometimes it is portrayed by a man. It is hard to get a bead on how Christmas Past is supposed to look.
In the original Dickens version, Christmas Past is distinctly otherworldly. Dickens calls it an “it.” It is not quite male and not quiet female. It is not quite young and not quite old. Its shape shifts constantly. As Dickens describes it: For as it's belt sparkled and glittered now in one part and now in another, and what was light one instant, at another time was dark, so the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness: being now a thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty legs, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a body: of which dissolving parts, no outline would be visible in the dense gloom wherein they melted away. And in the very wonder of this, it would be itself again; distinct and clear as ever.
The closest I can get to describing it is that it looks a bit like a candle. Quote:
from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet of light, by which all this was visible.
To make the candle analogy even clearer, Dickens says that under one arm the ghost carried an extinguisher, a candle snuffer, as a hat. If you have seen the Jim Carrey version of A Christmas Carol, it actually comes the closest to what Dickens envisioned.
I think all of us around this time of year spend at least a little time with the Ghost of Christmas Past. And like that strange phantom, our memories and recollections often change and flicker as the glow of a candle flame. And like Scrooge, we have the good, healthy, fun memories as well as the painful, bitter, stinging reminisces which haunt our souls and our lives.
As his vision of the past continues, The Ghost of Christmas Past shows Scrooge his former fiancée Belle at home with her happy children, children that could have been his.
And when he thought that such another creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise, might have called him father, and been a spring-time in the haggard winter of his life, his sight grew very dim indeed
. As the family relaxes by a cozy fire after a joyous, if chaotic Christmas celebration, Belle’s husband tells her that he saw her old friend, Scrooge.
He was in his office, working, alone, as his partner Jacob Marley lay dying, there he sat alone. Quite alone in the world, I do believe.
Scrooge cannot bear the vision anymore! REMOVE ME he demands. To which the Spirit says
one of the most terrifying lines
in the story:
“I told you these were shadows of the things that have been, that they are what they are, do not blame me!”
I know you won’t believe this, but I have met and I have talked to Ebenezer Scrooge. Oh, he had a different name and he led a different life, but his story was essentially the same. Unlike Scrooge, he had been married, had two sons, had it all really. But then, like old Ebenezer, something got hold of him, something more important than his wife, something more important than his kids. Ambition? The need to explore the world? Greed? Who knows? But he walked away and left it all behind in search of something bigger, something he thought grander, something he felt he needed more at the time. When I met him, a couple of weeks ago, he confided to me that he had screwed up and screwed up royally. He, like Scrooge, had made a fateful decision and that decision eventually broke him. His wife has moved on. And his sons? To be honest, one son keeps in contact, but the other is still angry and bitter and basically would have nothing to do with him. And it pains him to his very core. In many ways, he is alone, quite alone in the world, I do believe.
“I told you these were shadows of the things that have been, that they are what they are, do not blame me!”
The reason why A Christmas Carol still speaks to us 175 years later, is that the story of old Ebenezer Scrooge is the story of us all. His vanity is our vanity. His arrogance is our arrogance. His hollowness is our hollowness. His emptiness is our emptiness.
And ultimately his dread is our dread.
And his redemption? Well his redemption is the whole point of this Christmas season. It is the reason for the light, it is the reason for the vision of the spirits, it is hope that we find in a simple manger outside of a little town called Bethlehem. It is that same hope we as Christians, as Catholics need to share with our wacky world, our chaotic culture. We hope that we may surrender to joy, that we may breathe the fresh air of justice and peace. We hope that we may reject the sorry ways of greed, violence, bigotry and hate.
I really like the ending of a Christmas Carol, because it is big fat slap to all the skeptics and the cynics of our world who simply don’t get it. (Never have and probably never will.) It goes like this:
Some people laughed to see the alteration in Scrooge, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms.
His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.
May your Christmas be filled with that same laughter of salvation.
God Bless us, everyone.
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If you are interested in sponsoring the event, please refer to the sponsorship information to the right. Our Par and Ace sponsorships include, in addition to many other benefits, advertising space on the mobile bidding site we will be introducing for this year's auction. For more information or to submit your sponsorship, please contact Bridget Callahan at 636-239-7871 ext. 123.
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A KNIGHT AT THE MASTERS
This year's annual dinner auction will be themed, "A Knight at the Masters". It will be held on Saturday, February 16, 2019.
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Click on the logo to the right to view all upcoming sports schedules. If you would like notifications on games, please click on the logo at the right and sign up under "notify me". You will receive game time changes, cancellations and game reminders if you are signed up
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In thanksgiving for the sacrifices and contributions offered by those before us on our behalf, we at St. Francis Borgia Regional High School offer our afternoon prayer for different members of our alumni each day.
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In the November edition of our alumni e-newsletter, we incorrectly reported the 2018 football season record. The Knights ended their season with an incredible 10-2 record, not the 10-22 record we published.
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Recently married? New baby or job?
Let us know what's going on in your life so we can share
it with your classmates in this newsletter!
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St. Francis Borgia Regional High School
1000 Borgia Drive, Washington, MO 63090
P: 636-239-7871
F: 636-239-1198
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