advent

Dear SJCS Families,

“Advent returns us to the horizon of hope. A hope that does not disappoint, because it is founded on the Word of God.” ~ Pope Francis

Today marks the first day of Advent, a season of prayer and anticipation. Traditionally at St. John’s we would be busy planning and practicing for our Annual Christmas Pageant. Unfortunately, that event has had to be cancelled due to the number of people that would be inside the church at any one time. However, we are thrilled to announce that we will be performing a Drive-Thru Live Nativity presentation on December 16, 2020. Our teachers are busy preparing what our new event will entail, so stay tuned for details. This means that we are requesting all students (PK-8) to be prepared to participate in our Live Nativity on the evening of December 16. Students may stay after school and attend Learning Center – as we anticipate our event will be held from 5:00-6:00pm to accommodate working parents, but also to finish up before it gets too cold and late. We hope you are as excited for this event as we are! We will need parent volunteers to help pull this together, so if you’re interested in helping with this event, please let us know.

We have more exciting news to announce…..our new Chromebooks were delivered last week! We are SO EXCITED to finally have them at our school. It will take some time to prepare them so that they are functional as St. John’s computers for our students – so don’t be surprised if your child doesn’t have access to it this week. A timeline on when we will be rolling them out will be forthcoming. This means that we now have enough Chromebooks to be 1-1 with all of our students PK-8. This is a very big moment for St. John’s! [Thank you to those of you who purchased devices for your children, this helped immensely with our ability e to purchase enough devices for all students – in addition to the significant donations from The Knights of Columbus in Brunswick and Bath!]

The Read-a-Thon starts tomorrow, so make sure to login and get your child’s account setup! Poinsettia orders are due tomorrow, so please remember to send them in with your student – they will be delivered on Tuesday, December 8 – so please plan to pick them up on that day (you can pick them up at Learning Center). We will be rolling out another fundraiser this week, so stay tuned for how to earn our school money with the purchase of Hibernate Bed Sheets! (It sounds weird, but I’ve been told they’re a wonderful product, and something we all need!)

Finally, the Diocese of Portland has put some Advent Resources together for our families. I’ve attached some ideas for celebrating Advent with your family, but you can follow this link for more ideas: Diocese of Portland Advent Resources.

Peace in Christ,

Shelly Wheeler

Principal

Monday, November 30

Read-a-Thon begins

Poinsettia Orders due

Tuesday, December 1

SJCS School Mass – 8am (No guests, only students and faculty)

Lectors – Grades 6/7

Cantors – Grade 5

Livestream Available on Facebook: @SJCSBME

Grades 1-4 attend via Livestream