Page 3 - Priorities #67 2017 Spring

Dear Priory Community,
It is hard to imagine that the end of the year is just a few weeks down the road. This celebration year of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the monastery by Father Egon has allowed us to reflect in a spirit of gratitude for the Priory of today and the values which are as strong as they were in 1956. While the landscape has certainly changed, the Priory’s mission has remained steadfast “to assist all
students in creating meaningful and balanced lives.”
In February I was fortunate to accompany eight Priory girls along with Father Martin and Britta Brown to a service trip in New Orleans. We spent the week fixing homes that were damaged in Hurricane Katrina. Our crew worked hard, crawling under homes to attach insulation, painting, spackling, mudding, and measuring twice and cutting once for baseboards. It felt good to give back, and those eight girls, or the “Dream Team” as I like to call them, came home with a feeling of accomplishment. Be sure to read the article in this issue written by student Eva El Fishawy ’18 for more details on our adventure.
Priory is rich in history, and this spring we had some historic firsts!
• The boys and girls basketball teams both advanced to the NorCal playoffs.
• The boys took home second place in CCS and the girls made school history with their first CCS Championship.
• The first girls lacrosse team took to the field, and the bustling team of over thirty girls are already surprising their competitors with how quickly they are picking up the game.
• The “Enchanted Forest” Gala lived up to its name, and the magical evening topped school records by raising over a million dollars. We are so very thankful for our generous Priory community.
Our Building Ingenuity campaign is in full swing with four building projects in progress. On the lower campus, the pool renovationiswellunderwaytocreateaswimming/waterpolopool. Alsoonthelowercampusnearthenewtrackandfield, we are building two track houses. One will be a team locker room and the other building will be for storage of track and field equipment. The upper campus view is changing drastically with the STREAM building construction well underway and a new entry pavilion for the Franklin Garden. Just imagine what this campus will look like one year from now for our 60th anniversary!
The season of Lent has just come to a close and the tradition of Lenten Talents began some fifteen years ago. The concept for Lenten Talents comes from the Parable of the Talents in Matthew’s Gospel and happens during the forty day season of Lent. Each student, faculty, and staff member is given a single dollar and challenged to multiply that dollar using their talents. The Priory community is full of highly talented people in a wide range of areas. For instance faculty member Tess Tran made homemade kombucha and almond milk; Father Martin made beautifully hand-crafted cutting boards; Dot Kowal delivered flower arrangements; and George Schnurle made 3D printed nameplates. Students have done bake sales, made snowcones, bracelets, babysitting, and other creative endeavors to multiply their dollar. All of the proceeds are donated to the Rebuilding Together project in which over thirty Priory volunteers helped to renovate a local home in need of repair. Lenten Talents is just one of the many significant Priory traditions.
I know you will enjoy reading this issue of Priorities and seeing once again how we live out our Benedictine heritage and ministry. May you always Ora et Labora.
Tim Molak Head of School
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HEAD OF SCHOOL