Catholic Schools Week | An Essay by Ben Swiat (Jan 10, 2019)

Hello my name is Ben Swiat  and I would like to thank all of our parishioners for all of the assistance you give St Francis de Sales School. As a student of St. Francis it means a lot to me seeing how much all of you care and help our school. Because of all of you I have opportunities to participate in extracurricular activities, High School level classes, and make really good friends

While attending this school I have made many good friends that were welcoming and kind since the first day I came to St Francis and have continued to do so throughout my entire time here. I believe that a quality like that is obtained through example and what better examples do we have than our volunteers. Our volunteers and teachers have crafted St. Francis students into kind and good people.

The donations that we receive from our parishioners it allow us to have the ability to audition for plays, compete in a speech contest, and even run for Student Council. Because of the donations we receive we are able to express ourselves and have fun acting in our school play. In the speech contest we pick a speech and act it out loud to an audience, we represent and express these speeches to the best of our abilities. With the support from all of you and actually judging the contest we are able to turn it into a formal event or we are able to make a fun, interesting contest for everyone to watch. Student council as a program where you create your own speech and present it in front of your class. After all the candidates have said their speech the entire class votes on a President, Vice President, and an Alternate. These representatives then go to meetings, host events, and even take out the recycling each classroom. These meetings help to develop the students sense of responsibility. All of you help with this by volunteering to help these students or even just donating to these events. And I can’t express how grateful I am.

What’s the support we receive from all of you we are able to have the opportunity to take High School courses like Geometry, Science, and even some English. I’ve been to schools that, for example, only went up to Pre-Algebra in 8th grade well here it seems Francis we are able to go up to Geometry. That’s junior level Mass, that’s just phenomenal that we have that benefit. This Advantage comes from all of the help all of you give the school.

The spiritual agent give us is just astoundingly flattering to me and all of my fellow classmates. We are so fortunate to have an entire community that prays and cares for us. That is just amazing. Also our Parish right next to our most to grow closer to God and learn his teachings and everything he sacrificed for us.

St Francis is an amazing school with a dedicated and supporting community. We are so lucky to have all of you there to catch us when we fall and help us throughout our time here in St Francis. In the end I just want to say thank you.