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President’s Message
Along with many other key events in Canada and our cities this year, 2010 marks St. Pat’s 80th year of bringing education and life skills to many of Ottawa’s youth. Plans are underway to acknowledge this significant milestone as part of Education Week events at the high school the last week of April. More specifically, the celebration will center on an event that has grown these past years into a symbol of the St. Pat’s spirit and ethos, the Cancer Breakfast, scheduled forWednesday April 28th from 6:30-9:00am. The driving force behind that initiative, Roberto Ierullo, has written a feature article for the Newsletter highlighting the momentum and significance that event has achieved for the students and staff of the high school and for the community at large. You can expect to see information for both the Cancer Breakfast and the 80th Anniversary in the coming weeks on our website at www.stpatsalumni.com.
Fundraising continues to be a priority of the Alumni Executive. As I mentioned last year, with provincial education funding levels continuing to drop, the onus to support extra-curricular programs such as sports, band and school uniforms have fallen to the parents. Many have no difficulty or hardship paying these extra fees…sadly some do. This pressure on student programs and other “spirit”- related projects requiring outside funding prompted an urgent request from the high school for assistance. As a result, we conducted a special fundraising effort this past fall lead by Don Grant (1960) and George Brown (1976). Response to that initial mail-out of about 150 letters was good and managed to generate enough initial funds allowing us to double our contribution ($2000) to the Student Marc Ouellet (‘70)
Assistance Fund. I am enclosing with this Newsletter a copy of the fundraising letter’s former student profiles, featuring Don Campbell (1960) and Michel Chikwanine (2007). As you can see, St. Pat’s continues to be an inner-city school molding a diverse student population into valued citizens. As always, any donation you can make to support this process is greatly appreciated.
Finally, we still need your help to spread the word about the Alumni, the 80th Anniversary and the website to any former St Pat’s students and staff. Please take the time to help us re-establish the connection by contacting those St Pat’s Alumni in your address book and encourage them to register online through the website or forward the newsletter to them electronically so they can print it, clip out the registration/donation slip provided and mail it in to the Alumni Association c/o St. Pat’s H.S.
Happy 80th Anniversary!