Service Projects

  St. Mary’s students were blessed with a new reason to believe in miracles this Christmas season. Zackary Reyna is a 16 year old, 10^th grader at Tivy High School in Kerrville, Texas and is truly a miracle. Reyna was diagnosed with an inoperable brain aneurysm when he was 8 years old. He was granted his wish in 2010 through the Make A Wish Foundation. His wish was to ride a rollercoaster at Disney World. Reyna got his ride and has been working to pay it forward ever since. He began asking others to support the Make a Wish Foundation by participating in the Macy’s Believe Campaign. For every letter that is written to Santa, Macy’s donates $1.00 to the Make A Wish Foundation. Reyna is helping other kids, just like him, have their wish granted. For the fourth year, Reyna kicked off the Macy’s Believe Campaign. He asked St. Mary’s students to collect letters to help reach his goal of 12,550 letters. 
            On Friday, December 9, 2016, Reyna delivered all the letters to Macy’s on Believe Day. The 245 St. Mary’s students wrote 830 letters, which Macy’s doubled their donation to total $1,660. Together with the others that he recruited, Reyna was able to turn in over 33,000 letters, which is a record by far. This is enough to grant six wishes. St. Mary’s students are proud to be a part of raising $66,000 for the Make a Wish Foundation.

St. Mary's Students will be participating in this annual effort to raise money for the Make a Wish Foundation. Click on the link below to see the inspirational story of the young man who recruited our students to make a difference.

When presented with the challenge to get involved in The Cajun Cowgirls school supply drive for children in Louisiana recently, St. Mary's Catholic School students wholeheartedly embraced the opportunity to help. St. Mary’s organized a three-day school supply drive, with the items delivered to the victims of the Louisiana flooding on August 25, 2016.
            Students, alumni and friends of the school were encouraged to bring any school supplies to help. The students in Louisiana were two days into their school year before losing everything. Families and friends of St. Mary’s Catholic School brought crayons, pencils, paper, spirals, markers, glue and many other items.
            Leticia Adams, SMS kindergarten teacher, used the opportunity as a teaching lesson for her students. When it was time to sort the items, she had her class do a math sorting project. The kindergarten class organized all the supplies into big containers which were loaded for transport by the Apache Football team.
            “We went in with the idea that something or anything would be better than nothing.  All I can say is that I am amazed once again by the generosity of our community, our families, and our students,” SMS Principal John Mein said. “The outpouring of donations, that we thought might fill a box, quickly filled an office, then an office and a separate room, and finally a whole truck.  It's tough enough to get school started, and I can't imagine getting school started under such adverse circumstances as those in the flooded regions of Louisiana.  I just hope that the little things we have done can give a few students a good start to this new school year, and make sure they know their Texas neighbors have them in their prayers.”
            The school supplies, along with clothing, toiletries and other donations, were delivered by SMS parents Amy Cop and Anna Ottmers,. Cop said the devastation was intense. She encouraged everyone to get involved. “You can’t help everyone, but if everyone just helped one person,” Cop said.
 

The Class of 2017 chose Tanglewood Elementary School, a school in Lousiana damaged by the flooding in August 2016, as their service project. Fundraisers were held throughout the year and a check for $4,742.83 was sent to Tanglewood in May 2017. We are proud to live our our mission statement to serve our neighbors.