St. Mary’s Gala St. Mary’s Gala St. Mary’s Gala St. Mary’s Gala

In February, St. Mary’s held its 23rd annual Jog-A-Thon where we raised a record-breaking $62,000. This event is all about fun, promoting physical fitness and building school spirit while raising funds that support our extensive athletic programs. The Jog-A-Thon actively involves our students and allows them to share a sense of pride and accomplishment by contributing their own “sweat equity” to improving our school. The funds raised enable us to enrich and supplement our Athletic and Physical Education programs. We are so thankful for our healthy, active and competitive Falcon community.

As an incentive for our students, St. Mary’s recognized the top fundraising students by grade and division. Some of the prizes included Falcon Pride Wristbands, Free Dress Passes, Dairy Queen Blizzard Party, All-School Fun Friday and Free Summer Resort Athletic Camp.

This year we used a new pledge platform, PledgeStar, to make it incredibly easy to share and collect donations for the Athletic and PE programs. With the funds raised from the Jog-A-Thon, the Athletics Department was able to purchase new sets of jerseys for many sports to roll out next year and a variety of new equipment including lacrosse goals, soccer nets, volleyball carts, lacrosse backstop, lacrosse sets, portable scoreboards and more.

Our young EEP students had some requests of their own and ended up with Snuggle Pod Tree Swings, Treehouse Pulley System, flying discs and more. Our Outdoor Education educator commented, “At first glance, these swings seem like they are just cute and snuggly, but they are also a great tool for supporting vestibular development. They are a hit!” You can peek over the fence to see them in action.

The PE department utilized the funds raised to incorporate several new GOPHER pieces of equipment for our K-8 Physical Education curriculum. The most exciting purchase was a very large 72” diameter inflatable ball that the students have been having a blast with in the Gym. With this giant ball, we have played games such as “Keep it Up” and “Run the Gauntlet” which are extremely fun, but also aid in students’ cardiovascular fitness since the games involve running and jumping. We purchased 12 new anti-tip scooter boards, which have been awesome and safe for the students in games such as “Hungry Hungry Hippos” and a variety of relays that encourage hand eye coordination and teamwork. In addition to these two items, we purchased over 25 great quality 7” foam balls that have and will be used in several different throwing and catching games such as Medic, Mat Ball, Star Wars Tag and many more. Some of the dodgeballs even glow in the dark and come with large inflatable barriers to hide behind, so we hope to get a game of glow in the dark “capture the flag” going in the gym soon!

When asked about the Jog-A-Thon, Jeremy Haworth, Grade 8 student athlete shared,

Athletics Social Media Channel

Follow St. Mary’s Athletic highlights on Instagram @falconathleticsnetwork.

Formation of the Falcon Athletic Network

What started off as a dream has turned into a reality thanks to the hard work and dedication of Grade 8 student Luke Lehman. FAN, or Falcon Athletic Network, live streams select St. Mary’s sporting events on YouTube. Parents and families from all over the country and world can watch their family and friends play. To follow our Falcons in action, subscribe to FAN YouTube channel at www.smaa.org/sports.

2023 St. Mary’s Track Invitational

Participation in athletics continues to soar with over 40 teams participating in our Parochial Athletic League this year, which is an all time record. Hundreds of Falcons are learning about Falcon Pride through Athletics. Most recently, more than 110 students represented St. Mary’s at our annual St. Mary’s Track Invitational. On April 29, our school hosted seven PAL schools at JSerra Catholic High School. Our Falcons ran, jumped and threw their hearts out in a variety of events.

This event would not be possible without the tremendous support of our alumni and parent volunteers. The track program is so blessed to have alumni volunteers at our Sunday practices and the annual meet. A big thank you to alum Luke Friedl. This year, Luke helped lead distance practices and ran point on the behind-the-scenes work at the track meet. Another huge thank you to Don Keena. Don has been the lead track parent volunteer for many years helping with practice every Sunday and with the annual track meet. This is his final year at St. Mary’s (his daughter Megan is graduating this spring). Thank you Don for your dedication and support.