Anuual Giving 2007-2008

Office of the President

January 2008

I bring you greetings from Bishop Walsh School!  We are well underway with the welcome challenges of the school year, even as we welcome the students every day with renewed vigor.  It is the students who are the focus of my letter to you this season.  What is the face of Catholic education today?  This question has been a point of reflection for me of late, as I look at the individual faces who are in our daily care.

As Catholic educators, we are part of one of the largest school systems in the USA, serving a national enrollment of well in excess of 1,850 million students.  That’s a lot of faces!  Numbers alone cannot reflect the individuals who come through our doors every morning - the children who we serve - and for whom we design a learning environment rich in academics, religious education, arts, athletics, citizenship and socialization experiences.  Some of our faces are as young as three years, coming to us for all or half day kindergarten. In addition to our students ranging from three to seventeen or eighteen, our faces include parents, grandparents, friends, neighbors, clergy, alumni/ae, and community leaders.  We cannot forget our faculty and staff…dedicated Brothers, Sisters and lay teachers who reinforce Catholic values every day for our children. 

Our faces are of many colors, and we welcome the traditions from which they hail.  We are blessed to have students with us this year from South Korea, China, Serbia, and Britain.  Likewise, we send our graduates out to far-flung places to study, work and serve in the military, including France, the Middle East, Canada, China, Italy, Japan and Thailand.  We are blessed by the diversity we experience through our students and their families. 

Our students are those to whom we have promised our stewardship, and we undertake this mission very seriously.  Our promise to them is part of our greater promise to God…to live and work in His service. This is an unbroken circle, and we are blessed in our roles as Catholic educators.  In turn, your stewardship means more than a contribution to a school.  Through your portion given to us, you reinforce your role as first a person who experienced Catholic education, and now as a person able to impact the future for today’s students.  We – all of us interested in children – are the face of Catholic education. While we are mindful that we must prepare our children for a global world, we know, too, that what we do each day here on Haystack Mountain is of the utmost importance.

Thank you for your continued partnership in our most important endeavor:  educating children to become adults who will in turn take their places in this unbroken circle of “faces”.    

May God richly bless you and your loved ones this season and always.

In peace,

Sister Phyllis McNally, SSND

© 2007
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