Teaching a Tradition of Service

Our Service Mission

At Holy Rosary, we believe in helping students become self-directed in taking actions based on the gospel teachings of Jesus Christ, while developing into positive, contributing members of our school, parish, and world community. Through our active stewardship program, students learn to value the spiritual dimension of life, which provides them with a deeper purpose and develops a commitment to living a Christ-centered rather self-centered life. The school year is filled with activities and events that help students understand and practice the seven principles of Catholic Social Teaching and also reinforce lessons learned in other subject areas.

School Wide Projects

Our school wide service projects include the Ugandan Students Project where we have adopted 3 Ugandan children providing them with much needed funds for clothing, food, and school. We maintain personal contact with our sponsored students by periodic visits from our parish missions traveling to Uganda. Holy Rosary students are encouraged to donate $1 a month to support this effort.

In addition, everyone actively participates in the Lunches of Love campaign where students pack an extra lunch or two during the school year to help feed the hungry. Also, our entire community of students, families and staff join together contributing items to periodic drive campaigns for items in need including Food, Blanket, or Coat Drives.

Read more about the school’s Lunches of Love campaign.

Classroom Projects

Each grade keeps very active during the year. Below are some of the events and projects organized at the classroom level.

Kindergarten:

Collect socks and underwear for Clothesline. Clothesline is a clothing bank located in the Convent providing clothing to all ages for individuals in need.

1st Grade:

Donate vegetables and ingredients to the Soup Kitchen. Soup Kitchen is a Parish Ministry where volunteers prepare gallons of homemade soup to feed the hungry at the Lazarus Day Center.

2nd Grade:

Support the Parish Women’s Shelter with “pillow notes” of love and encouragement to our overnight guests.

3rd Grade:

Sponsor the Canned Food Drive at Thanksgiving where the food is blessed at mass and given to local food banks.

4th Grade:

Support Homeless Children’s Project collecting requested items during Christmas time. Everyone loves the annual 4th Grade Spring Bake Sale where proceeds are donated to a worthy cause. They also pick up trash during the annual spring Alki Trash Pick Up event.

5th Grade:

Adopts a family at Christmas making their season special with donated gifts. The students also donate their before and after school time as traffic crossing guards at the school intersections.

6th Grade:

Sponsors a pancake breakfast in the fall serving food and providing clean up. Also prepare and sell sub sandwiches on Super Bowl weekend. These projects help fund the student’s annual sailing trip.

7th Grade:

Complete service hours as part of their learning curriculum. 7th grade students work on a three-hour project including report and presentation. They also raise and release salmon to help restore the salmon run in Fauntleroy Creek as part of their Science curriculum.

8th Grade:

The 8th Graders complete 30 service hours of their choice and this year organized and conducted a “mock vote” for the current election, raising citizen awareness for this privilege in Social Studies. For their year-end garden project students cultivate, plant, harvest, and then donate their crop of vegetables.

Other junior high classroom projects include:

• donating ingredients to the Soup Kitchen
• contributing to the Microfinance Fund as a practical application of unit on Catholic Social Teaching
• collecting school supplies for Carmelite Sisters in the Philippines
• Christmas present donations.

The Leadership Elective assists in parish and school projects as the need arises, promotes student assemblies and spirit days, and provides clean up gardening service around the traffic circle.

Serving and Faith Formation

All classrooms actively serve in our faith community by planning and serving weekly Prayer Services held each Friday in the school. In addition, all school masses held periodically at the Church are often sponsored by a grade or classroom. There are many opportunities for active service for the weekend masses. 5th graders and above may volunteer to alter serve. 6th graders and above are encouraged to be readers, greeters, and ushers. 3rd graders and above may volunteer to sing in the parish children’s choir. All grades may sponsor an after mass “Coffee and Donuts” during the school year. Encourage your students to participate in the masses, it’s a great way to connect with our parish community!