Hope Hall:

“Look into the depths of your soul.
Where do you see tomorrow?
It’s in the minds, hearts and faces of the children.”

— from “Faces of the Children”
by Sister Kathy Sherman

News: March 2008

A Special Thank You
Our first ever dance for parents and friends raised $400 for our school. A very big THANK YOU to Dave and Becky Corcimiglia for organizing the dance. Thank you also to Colleen Conner Ziegler, Debbie and Shawn Padden, Michelle Cohen, Miranda Richmond, Jan Barney, and Linda Fagan for all their help in arranging food and decorating the gym. We also thank all who sent in food and beverages.

RE-REGISTRATION FORMS DUE
Re-registration forms are being sent home on Monday, March 10th and must be returned by Monday, March 31st. Once you have indicated that you would like to
re-register, we will send home the actual re-registration forms. Please return your
re-registration forms together with the registration fee for next year on or before Monday, March 31st.

We are getting numerous phone calls from parents of new students. I want to give first priority to current students already attending Hope Hall but will only hold places for them until Tuesday, April 1st. After that date, new students for the 2008-2009 school year will be accepted into Hope Hall, and your child will not be guaranteed a spot.

Walk for Hope
The fourth annual Walk for Hope will take place on Friday, May 30th. All students, faculty, and staff will take part in the walk and will be gathering sponsors. Our goal is for each participant to raise $100.00. This Walk for Hope is a critical element in our operating budget. We need to raise $15,000 total.

If you would like to sponsor a student, please send your donation to Linda Foster in the Development Office and she will give credit to a student in need of sponsors. Checks should be made payable to Hope Hall. You may sponsor a child for as little as $5.00 or you may sponsor several children, or you may sponsor an entire homeroom at 12 students for as little as $60.00. Thank you for any help you can give to our Walk for Hope.

United Way Donor Option
It is more important than ever for us to increase our United Way Donor Option base. The cost per student for next year’s budget will be based on 115 students. The deficit we’ll need to raise for each child is $8000. Money received from United Way Donors is crucial to our operations. Please, please, please consider becoming a United Way Donor yourself and designating Hope Hall to receive your gift. Please ask family members, friends, and co-workers to do the same. For Hope Hall, each dollar from United Way Donors is not extra or “icing on the cake”. It is desperately needed for us to meet our basic, bare bones, no-frills budget.

The campaign begins on April 1 and runs until May 15th. Here are the steps to follow to contribute to Hope Hall through the United Way Donor Choice Option:

•Ask your United Way Volunteer for a 2008 United Way Donor Choice Designation Form. Without it, you cannot specify that you wish your contribution to go to Hope Hall.

•Fill out Choice No. 4 on the Donor Choice Designation Form.

•Indicate the portion of your donation that you want to go to HOPE HALL, UNITED WAY AGENCY ID # 2108.

•Return your completed Donor Choice Designation Form, along with your Pledge Card, to your Volunteer Fund-raiser.

You’ll help us continue to provide Hope Hall students with a high quality education that meets their special learning needs.

On behalf of the wonderful children whom we serve, thank you very much for designating your United Way pledge to HOPE HALL, UNITED WAY AGENCY ID #2108.

Remember---Hope Hall is not a United Way agency. We will not receive any United Way funds unless you, and other friends, use the United Way Donor Choice Option to designate Hope Hall, United Way Agency ID #2108, to receive your pledge. Please Help!

SERVING OTHERS: PENNIES FOR PATIENTS
During the month of February, students and staff participated in the “Pennies for Patients” program to benefit the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. All during the month, pennies and spare change were collected in each homeroom and in the Main Office, and even though we had no school for one week, and were missing from school one additional snow day, the final total collected was $1038.13.

Congratulations to all of our students, our staff, and some generous friends of Hope Hall for putting others first and making this program a success. You can all be proud of your commitment to your community!

ANNOUNCING: ICE CREAM SOCIAL AND “BUY ONE-GET ONE FREE” BOOK FAIR
On Friday, March 28th, Hope Hall will sponsor an ice cream social for our families, and a “buy one-get one free” book fair. The book fair comes just before our reading marathon, and is a great way to stock up on books for the reading marathon or to put away as birthday or holiday gifts.

The ice cream social/book fair will open at 6:30 PM. Families can eat first and then go to the book fair, or shop first and then have ice cream for dessert. The ice cream social will be in the cafeteria. There is no charge for the sundaes. The book fair will be in the community room. For each book purchased, you will be entitled to one free book.

REMINDER
SNOW CLOSINGS
1. If the City of Rochester closes school due to snow, Hope Hall will be closed.
2. If Gates-Chili closes, Hope Hall will also close because it means the weather in Gates makes it too dangerous for the children to come to school.
3. If the district you live in closes, they will NOT send buses to pick up your child even if Gates-Chili has not closed schools.
4. If Hope Hall is open and the district in which you live has closed schools; you have to make a prudent decision. If it’s possible for you to bring your child to school, please do so. If it’s too dangerous, or if you have no way of getting your child here, call school to let us know and keep him/her home.
5. In case of bad weather, we will list our school closing by 6:00 AM on the following stations:

RADIO AM:
WHAM 1180

RADIO FM:
WBEE (92.5) WPXY (98.5)
WBBF (98.9) WXXI (91.5)
WVOR (100.5)

TV
Channels 8, 10,13 and R-News

PLEASE LISTEN TO THE RADIO OR WATCH THE TV FOR CLOSINGS. IF YOU DO NOT HEAR OUR SCHOOL’S NAME, THEN WE ARE NOT CLOSED.

Student of the Month: February 2008: David Curran

The Hope Hall Student of the Month for February is David Curran.

We congratulate our other February Student of the Month nominees: Naida Alyieva, Tyler Brock, Skyler Daniels, Angelle Dreier, Ryan Faulkner, Cory Hurst, Evans McLaren, Steven Richmond, and Alek Scotto, Saphire Strickland

All of these students were nominated for their willingness to help others and their school community. Students must also show outstanding effort in their work and must follow Hope Hall rules and help others in their efforts to follow the rules.

Each Student of the Month, their parents and families are invited to attend a breakfast meeting of the Rochester A.M. Rotary with Sr. Diana. David will also have his name added to the plaque in the front hall and will receive a $10 award. In addition, the Rotary will purchase a new book for our Library in honor of David!

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Principal's Corner: "Wants and needs"

After watching a re-run episode of "West Wing", a good friend and I got into a lively discussion about the role of government, fair distribution of wealth, forgiving the debts of Third World countries, and corporate greed which supports low wages in foreign countries at the expense of American jobs.

Discussions such as this usually put me into a reflective mode. I don't like going through life with an "Ain't it a shame how bad everything is" attitude, so I looked inward and asked myself "Is there anything about the choices I make that I need to change and do differently?" My reflections made me very aware of how much I want, how little I need, and the enormous difference between the two.

I know my "wants" are shaped by the media and by habit. It's so easy to fall into a gourmet attitude toward life - the value of something is determined by what's biggest, fastest, and most expensive. As a nation, we seem to have allowed ourselves to be duped into thinking that only a lifestyle supported by a salary of 6 figures is worth anything. We work longer hours to try to achieve that "6 figure status", and a lack of contentment with what we have seems to permeate our collective mood.

When I really look at what I need - food, clothing, shelter, love, happiness, respect, and dignity - I realize I can be very comfortable and have my needs met well without enormous costs.

I saw a quote on a calendar once that said, "If what we want is not what we need, we can never get enough of it." Now that's food for thought.

March is a good month to help our children begin to distinguish between wants and needs. It's a good time to help them develop an attitude of gratitude for all they have been given, and an attitude of generosity for helping others get what they need.

Needs such as happiness, respect, and dignity are "inside needs" meaning they can only be met from within ourselves. No outside person or thing can make us happy, or give us self-respect or a sense of our own dignity. We can accumulate all the wealth and power in the world and still be miserable, alone, and despised.

On the other hand, people with very little in terms of wealth or power can be extraordinarily happy and respected. What makes the difference between the two is the person's interior attitude toward life.

I am challenging all adults connected in any way with Hope Hall to use March to do some personal reflection of your own and serve as role models for our children as we help them to:

a) recognize the difference between what they want and what they need.

b) recognize that each person's happiness, respect, and dignity come from within and "outside" things or people can't provide them for us.

c) develop an attitude of gratitude for all they do have.

d) develop an attitude of generous service for helping others obtain what they need.

Some simple things you can do to help your children (or yourself) with this reflection are:

1. Talk to your children about the difference between a want and a need. For example, we need to have shoes. We may want shoes that cost $100. Can we meet our need in another way?

2. Tell your children each day, at least twice, "You are such a good person and I'm so blessed to have you as my child.” Say this to them when they least expect it – for instance, when you walk into a room where they are watching TV or doing something on their own.

3. Let them hear you say expressions of gratitude. For example, instead of complaining about what you don’t have money for, let your children hear you say things like, "I am so grateful that we have this place to live" or "Our family is really blessed - we live in a good country, we have freedom, we're not homeless and we're not without food."

I feel very confident that we can all work on this together and that March will be a much happier month for us, because we're recognizing that peace and happiness come to our spirit when we simplify our wants and meet our needs.

I hope you will accept this challenge - I hold you in my daily prayer!

News Student of the Month Principal's Corner

News

Student of the Month

Principal's Corner