Grow Boys 2020

Grow Boys is a full day leadership conference for Grade 5 boys in Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools and Red Deer Public Schools. This event includes sessions on physical activity, mental health/wellness, trades and technology. Students benefit from learning new skills and are exposed to positive role models throughout the day. This initiative has been allocated $2,000.

Go Girls 2020

Go Girls is a one-day event that promotes health and wellness to all Grade 5 girls in Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools and Red Deer Public Schools. This event focuses on physical activity, healthy eating and mental wellness. Students benefit by gaining new skills and knowledge while building new friendships. This initiative has been given $1,500.

Middle School Faith Week

Grade 6-9 students will have the opportunity to watch and learn from singer, songwriter and storyteller, Steve Angrisano. The division’s youth ministry team will travel with Steve to all middle schools so students can build their spirituality in their own community setting. This initiative has been allocated $4,000.

Grow Boys 2019

Grow Boys is a full day leadership conference for Grade 5 boys in Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools and Red Deer Public Schools. This event includes sessions on physical activity, mental health/wellness, trades and technology. Students benefit from learning new skills and are exposed to positive role models throughout the day. This initiative has been allocated $1,000.

Testimonial:

Grow Boys is an opportunity for pre-teen boys in Red Deer to explore the deeper meanings behind respect, understanding, relationships and responsibility. This year, over 800 Grade 5 boys, 80 high school mentors and nearly 50 presenters came together to support this successful event. It is a combined community effort to support the happy, healthy growth and development of boys. Thank you for your yearly support as we continue to positively impact the lives of our future community.

Go Girls 2019

Go Girls is a one day event that promotes health and wellness to all Grade 5 girls in Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools and Red Deer Public Schools. This event focuses on physical activity, healthy eating and mental wellness. Students benefit by gaining new skills and knowledge while building new friendships. This initiative has been given $1,000.

 

 

Testimonial

The funding for Go Girl was used to buy t-shirts for all of the Red Deer Catholic students and teachers that participated in Go Girl 2019. This funding helps to contribute to an amazing opportunity for Grade 5 girls to connect with many other students in Red Deer and to hopefully make new friends as they switch into Middle school in the fall. This activity also helps girls with new ways to promote active living and mental health.

RDCRS READS 2018 Summer Reading Program

The RDCRS READS Summer Reading Program is an exciting way to encourage our students to read throughout the summer months. The goal is to foster a love of reading through continued access to books. Seventeen of our schools have chosen to participate in this program with approximately 4,000 students involved. $5,000 has been allotted towards this program.

Testimonial

In order for our students to have a chance for higher academic achievement, we need to continue to support them by building strong literacy environments to develop a culture of
readers in our students. The funds were used for book bags for students participating in RDCRS READS. Students who took books from the school library received a bag and brought them back in September. Over 5400 students and over 16,000 books were given out.

The data is telling us that we are doing well. Students and parent want the program!
(Highlight Data: 311 parents responded, 434 elementary students responded, 105 middle school students responded.)

  • 46% of elementary students said they read more because of this Reading Program
  • 72% of elementary students said they would like books again next summer
  • 87% said they would like the Learning Commons open next summer
  • 77% of parents said they would like books from the school next summer
  • 40% of parents said their child’s reading improved because of the Reading Program
  • 4 Schools had libraries open

 

Faith Leadership Team and Youth Ministry

In conjunction with youth ministry, Grade 8 and 9 students will get the opportunity to partake in a middle school faith day. This event allows students to grow in the Catholic faith and become leaders in their schools. This program has been allocated $4,000.

Testimonial 

We are grateful to the Red Deer Catholic Education Foundation for funding our second annual Grade 8 and 9 Faith Day. This event was held on Tuesday, April 16, 2019. The event was held at the Prairie Pavillion at Westerner Park.  We needed to move to this venue as St. Joseph’s was holding a tournament in their school that week.

Our students will be inspired by two remarkable speakers – APeX Ministry. APeX is two Catholic men (Brad Farmer and Gene Monterastelli) who have made it their lives’ work since 1996 to criss-cross North America sharing the Truth and Joy of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They have crafted a unique style (they call it “Christian Vaudeville”) that engages an audience and creates rapport through death-defying juggling, sketch comedy, and personal testimony. In other words, they are evangelists, they throw things at each other, and they are funny.

Here are some feedback gathered by the teachers who attended with the students.

  • “The Apex guys were really good. The event was fun. It was good that they added in some fun with the juggling but with a good faith message as well. Much better than a boring talk.” Josh K
  • “Apex was really funny and the audience involvement made it fun.” Camille
  • “Thank you for bringing us to Faith day. They were really fun, and it was also fun being there! It was nice seeing other schools there.” Christine
  • “It was entertaining to watch.” Alyanna
  • “I enjoyed being able to see my friends from other schools.” Eden
  • “It was very fun and I enjoyed how they taught us in a fun way.” Simon
  • “I really loved the comedy that came with the religious message. Really awesome!” Ashlee
  • “I really enjoyed my time there and a lot of hard work was put in.” Lily
  • “Something that I liked was being able to interact with other students from other schools. Also, it was nice being in a different environment and learning in a more interactive way.” Molly
  • “They were very funny and entertaining.” Cora
  • “I enjoyed meeting up with other schools.” Tommy
  • “I liked that the guys from APEX were funny while giving a good faith message at the same time.” David
  • “It was fun to be out of school in a different environment with our friends.” Madi
  • “I liked seeing all my friends from different schools. Also, the presenters were funny.” Jayden
  • “I enjoyed the messages hidden behind the awesome, funny acting stories and scenes.” Jordana
  • “I really appreciated the effort put into the faith day and I liked the interactiveness!” Ty

Grow Boys (Grade 5 Leadership)

This collaborative effort between Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools, Red Deer Public Schools and the City of Red Deer provided an event in which Grade 5 boys experienced a variety of activities under the mentorship of high school boys. The Education Foundation allocated $1,500 for this event.

Grade 5 Beginner Band Day

The RDCRS Grade 5 Beginner Band Day entered into its fourth year with over 500 students in attendance. This was an extensive workshop that involved students and instructors from across the school Division and the Education Foundation was happy to support it through an allocation of $3,000.

Yellow Bear Project

Through a shared partnership with Red Deer Public Schools and Family Services of Central Alberta, Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools supports an event called “Kindergarten Here I Come.” During Kindergarten Here I Come, our Division provided information about attending a Catholic school by providing families with a book entitled “Yellow Bear Goes to Catholic School.” The foundation provided funding for these books in the amount of $2,600.