Each year a theme is chosen for the school that is used throughout the year to focus on our Catholic values. This year our theme is, “Serve One Another With Joy.” When the faculty discussed the theme it was with thoughtfulness and attention to each word. We want to guide our children in understanding that when they serve one another they are serving the Lord and the Lord loves a cheerful giver. At Notre Dame Catholic School service is prevalent throughout the year. There are many opportunities for our students to serve one another within their classroom, the school, the church and the wider community. Each grade plans a service project for the school year. While we try to have one service project per month there are often service opportunities that present themselves and when that happens we joyfully say, “Yes.” Before school started the Social Concerns Committee for Notre Dame Church asked if we would help with items needed for the Options Food Bank. We are collecting plastic water bottles, plastic grocery bags, egg cartons and small plastic pill bottles. We have a beautiful green trunk outside of the school office with items donated thus far and it is already overflowing. How truly blessed we are by the entire school community who gives generously and joyfully. Days after Hurricane Irene hit the east coast another service opportunity presented itself. One of our seventh grade students came to me and said that she and her sister wanted to do something for the victims of the hurricane. She gave me a website for donating through American Red Cross that has been sent out to our families. The two girls are coordinating a casual dress day next week and the money will be sent to American Red Cross. We are always open to a student taking the initiative to serve. As we go through this school year we will welcome any occasion to serve one another. Sometimes it might be an offer of a kind word or a helping hand to a peer who is having a difficult day. It can be the seventh graders spending the afternoon sprucing up the Prayer Garden, which they did on September 1st. Whatever the situation to give service let us do it with a smile on our face and joy in our heart; it is what God calls us to do.