We serve and teach, we receive and learn.
Greetings from St. Joseph’s Indian School.
The weather the last two weeks has been amazing. No blistering cold, rain or snow and temperatures have been in the 50’s and 60’s.
VALENTINE’S SOBRIETY CARNIVAL
A week ago, we held our Valentine’s Sobriety Carnival in the Rec Center. For the students in grades 1-6, there were various games of skill, chance, hope and luck that they could take part in.
Every Tuesday for the next few months, we will be highlighting one of our 20 homes on St. Joseph’s campus.
Here at St. Joseph’s, we provide nationally-accredited home-away-from-homes for Native American children in grades one through twelve.
There are no dorms at St. Joseph’s. Children live in one of our campus homes with two specially-trained houseparents. They live and play together as any family would. The boys and girls learn life skills and enjoy spending time with their ‘St. Joseph’s family’.
St. Joseph’s Carola Home is one of our High School Boys Homes on campus.
One of our Counselors wanted to pass this Valentine along.
Our first grade students were making Valentines in Guidance Class the other day and one student wanted to give a Valentine to God!
Now I could write a long blog on this, but I think it speaks for itself.
We truly are blessed in our Mission here at St. Joseph’s Indian School, and the students provide the greatest blessing of all.
Happy Valentine’s Day to all our supporters and those sharing in our Mission!
Mike
St. Joseph’s President
Greetings from St. Joseph’s Indian School. I hope this blog finds you all well!
CATHOLIC SCHOOLS WEEK
Last week, we joined Catholic schools from all around the country to celebrate Catholic Schools Week.
Since 1974, National Catholic Schools Week is the annual celebration of Catholic education in the United States. The theme for the National Catholic Schools Week 2017 is “Catholic Schools: Communities of Faith, Knowledge and Services.”
Throughout the week, Continue reading “Welcoming in February at St. Joseph’s!”
Hi everyone. My name is Kory and I serve as the Executive Director of Development at St. Joseph’s Indian School.
I am very grateful for the opportunity to work for such a wonderful organization. The passion of our staff is only matched by the generosity of our friends and donors – I enjoy my work immensely!
Very soon you will be receiving your annual Gift Receipt in the mail. I wanted to take the opportunity to thank you for your support, let you know to watch for this document, and tell you a little about myself. Continue reading “A note from Kory…”
Good day from St. Joseph’s Indian School! I hope the weather in your area has not been too harsh. We have had a nice stretch of weather that our students have taken full advantage of.
Every day after school, they are outside playing and sledding down the ‘playground hill’. Though nice, the weather has maintained a crispness here in the Chamberlain area that has kept the Missouri River frozen. Continue reading “Random Happenings at St. Joseph’s!”
Our high school Lakota Nation Invitational Knowledge Bowl Team travelled to Rapid City, South Dakota on December 14th to compete in the 40th Anniversary of the Lakota Nation Invitational (LNI).
With the expectation of a snow storm and below zero temperatures, we decided to head to the competition a day early and were able to beat the storm. The next day, the storm worsened and halted travel for our Archery and Hand Games Team, who were still on campus at St. Joseph’s Indian School. This left our Knowledge Bowl Team as the sole representative of St. Joseph’s.
St. Joseph’s team- consisting of Lily, Justin, Danielle, Alyssa and Taelonna- began the competition with a ‘victory’ over Pierre Riggs High School on a forfeit, due to the declining weather conditions and their inability to make it to Rapid City.
Our next match was with Pine Ridge, which we won convincingly. We started out tentative, but in the end won by a score of 9-2.
Now all we had to do is wait our next opponent, White River, a perennial powerhouse in the competition … Continue reading “St. Joseph’s 3rd Place Finish at the 40th Annual LNI Knowledge Bowl!”
Good day from St. Joseph’s Indian School.
These past few days have been cold and windy… but there has been no heavy snow, which had closed the Interstate the previous week. The cold has kept the Missouri River frozen, which is what those who will be taking part in the ice fishing tournament next weekend like to hear.
Since St. Joseph’s students are away from campus for Christmas spending time with friends and family, we celebrated Christmas here the first Sunday after they returned (January 8). I was wondering what we should call the day and a young student came up to me and said, ‘happy St. Joseph’s Christmas!’ It is as good a name as anything else! Continue reading “Christmas and Basketball at St. Joseph’s Indian School!”
Greetings from St. Joseph’s Indian School.
Things were a bit hectic here Monday as students began returning from Christmas Break. Due to the recent snow storms and cold snap in the upper Midwest, we are still missing a few students who have been unable to return.
We hope all students will be here by Sunday, Continue reading “Welcoming in 2017 at St. Joseph’s Indian School!”
Holiday greetings from St. Joseph’s Indian School here on the banks of the ‘frozen’ Missouri River!
There was an article in our local newspaper about ice fisherman enjoying this time of year, as they can now get out on the ice and have some fun.
As you may have seen on local weather reports, the upper Midwest has been blasted. Last week, a rain and ice storm closed the Interstate all the way from Chamberlain to the Wyoming border. The weather is predicted to be nice now until Tuesday. We hope this is correct since Monday is the scheduled day for our students to return and we do not want them to be out in a storm trying to get back to campus. Please pray for good weather on Monday as our students travel back to St. Joseph’s.
Aside from the weather, the holiday break seems to have been rather peaceful here. We’ll be hitting full stride again on Tuesday when we have the Prayer Service to kick off the third quarter of the school year.
Since it has been rather quiet on campus, I want to take this chance to bring you up-to-date on various activities our students were engaged in this month. In mid-December, the students took part in the annual Christmas program, where those who have been practicing musical instruments get the chance to share their newfound skills with staff and their peers. Each class also recited a poem or sang a song.
This year each song, poem or musical number was introduced, giving some background on who wrote the song or poem or where a musical number was first performed. The talent was impressive—there were songs done on the pipe organ, drums, flute, trumpet, guitar and clarinet under the guidance of our music instructor.
The students were very happy to see that several family members were able to attend the performance!
On Sunday, December 4th, a good number of our students took part in Dancing Dolls & Dudes! Dancing Dolls & Dudes is a dance group that includes dancers from pre-kindergarten through 6th grade. Each age group performed a few routines for the crowd.
For boys, this is the second year that they have been able to participate. 10 St. Joseph’s young men decided to take part.
The Chamberlain Armory was packed with proud parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles and houseparents for the recital. As you watched, you could tell that a lot of time and effort had gone into the production—each group even had their own costumes!
Two of the adult leaders were members of St. Joseph’s staff and some of our high school girls even got involved as dance instructors for various groups.
We are so proud of everyone that took part!
As Christmas is more than just gifts, decorations and special music, it was nice to see the young ladies of Summerlee Home get into the spirit of giving and helping others. Their houseparent, Vicki, has been down with some medical issues and they wanted to help with her medical bills.
The girls created six baskets filled with various goodies, treats, games and a trip to the movies that students and staff could purchase raffle tickets for.
They sold the tickets at the wrestling match that gave our younger students the chance to show off what they had learned over the past month or so of practice. There was some great matches as the boys went at each other with great enthusiasm.
While that was exciting, the Summerlee Home girls were happy they had the chance to show their support, love and encouragement for their houseparent.
‘Flat Francis’ was a guest of Summerlee Home recently and enjoyed having the chance to share a meal or two and take part in the video game JUST DANCE. In the one picture, it looks like his hand raised in blessing is right in line with the reaching for the sky move the girls next to him are doing.
Over Christmas, our Religious Education teacher Joe has been fixing him up a bit due to some nicks and bruises he has picked up in the process of being passed from home to home. He’ll be in great shape once the students return and is anxious to see what his next adventure will be!
On behalf of all the students and staff here at St. Joseph’s Indian School, I would like to wish each of you a very Happy New Year filled with good health, much happiness, peace and joy now and throughout 2017.
Fr. Anthony Kluckman, SCJ
Chaplain