Stepinac High School Students Get Special Holiday, Miss Snow Day
Stepinac High School students were granted a holiday today, Monday, Feb. 2 for succeeding in meeting an annual challenge known as the Souper Bowl of collecting 25,000 cans of food and other food items by the deadline of Super Bowl Sunday.
Begun four years ago, Souper Bowl is Stepinac’s single largest annual food drive that “addresses a tremendous need for food by food pantries and soup kitchens in our community, a problem that is especially acute after the holidays when the level of donations declines,” said Stepinac President, Rev. Thomas Collins.
He added: “Our students are to be congratulated for once again meeting this vitally important challenge that is in keeping with Stepinac’s long tradition of great generosity in helping those who are less fortunate.”
This year’s drive kicked off in October when students were encouraged to start bringing food items to school each Wednesday. The cans and other items were then donated to local food pantries, soup kitchens and parish churches located primarily in the communities where Stepinac students live. “Part of a Stepinac education is to create greater awareness among our students about the needs of the hungry and homeless in their communities and how their generosity can make a difference,” noted Principal Paul Carty.
In keeping with this year’s “community helping communities” theme, Stepinac leveraged a number of “special relationships members of our administration and faculty have cultivated in the communities to help meet the goal,” Carty explained.
In so doing, the school was able to target and address very specific needs and received letters and notes expressing appreciation and gratitude. Some examples are Caritas of Port Chester food pantry whose President, Particia Walsh Hart, wrote: “Thank you for your donation of 400 pounds of pantry items. They are so appreciated…most of all by the people who have been supported by your generosity.”
Brother John McDonnell, FMS of the Marist Brothers Our Lady of Grace Community in the Bronx, noted: “On behalf of Our Lady of Grace parish food pantry and the 200 hungry and homeless people we feed each week, our heartfelt thanks for your generous contribution of canned goods. We were able to distribute your donations yesterday to many smiling, grateful faces.” He added: “We appreciate the trouble you took along with your very impressive seniors to deliver the food in person.”
Carty noted that Stepinac’s connection with Our Lady of Grace Community was cultivated as a result of another Marist brother, Fred Sambor, who is a member of the school’s Advancement department.
Several parish churches of the Archdiocese of New York benefitted from the Souper Bowl. One of them is the Church Our Lady of Assumption in the Bronx, whose pastor is Msgr. Anthony Marchitelli, former Stepinac President. “It was especially gratifying to receive a note praising the students’ exemplary generosity from Monsignor Marchitelli who contributed so much to advancing and leading the school’s support of our communities during his distinguished tenure.”
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