Around n’ About
August 2008 :: Teen Web Log
Our Lady of Lourdes grad on stage with Jaci Velasquez
MIAMI GARDENS | Carol Fernandez, a 2008 graduate of our Lady of Lourdes Academy, took center stage for a duet with popular Christian recording artist, Jaci Velasquez at Dolphins Stadium Aug. 16. Fernandez won the 2007 Voice of an Angel contest sponsored by God Squad Communications and is recording her first CD before heading off to Berklee College of Music in Boston. Auditions were held for this year’s VOA contest as part of the Marlins’ Super Saturday concert series. Read about it and watch the slide show and video here.
08.22.08 | Return to Top
Happenings in the hallways: the inside scoop
PALM BEACH | Our three intrepid bloggers are wrapping up a week of posts about their first week back at school at John Carroll, John Paul II, and Cardinal Newman high schools in the Palm Beach Diocese. Two of them made it back to school but, one was homebound most of the week courtesy of Tropical Storm Fay. Read about their experiences in the Florida Catholic’s blog, Happenings in the hallways: the inside scoop.
08.22.08 | Return to Top
Youths become warriors for God
ORLANDO | Youths at St. Maximilian Kolbe Parish in the Avalon Park section of Orlando have declared war on sin. Teens who belong to the new “Warriors of Worship” group at the parish are learning how to make choices that help them grow closer to God and stronger in their faith.
“It’s fun and it’s a good way to gather and express our faith,” said 10th-grade participant Evan San Martin.
On Aug. 3, the new warriors gathered for their first “Warrior Initiation Games” that included a game of tug-of-war and a marshmallow slingshot. According to organizers, the friendly competition helped them learn what it means to be a warrior for God. MORE...
08.15.08 | Return to Top
Olympian feat: 1 school, 5 athletes
MIAMI |One Catholic high school in Florida may hold the record for number of alumni taking part in Beijing 2008. Ana Rodriguez-Soto explains why St. Thomas Aquinas in Fort Lauderdale is such fertile soil for growing world-class athletes and tells when and how to watch the five Olympians on the Web. Her sotry begins here.
08.14.08 | Return to Top
Father Lopez High School goes hi–tech
DAYTONA BEACH | The teachers and staff at Father Lopez Catholic High School are fully prepared to deal with the prospect that the students will be more than usually “distracted” on the first day of school this semester, according to Bishop Thomas Wenski.
After all, he added at a media event the afternoon of the official dedication of the new campus Aug. 6, they’ll have plenty to explore on the new, $30 million campus on LPGA Boulevard in Daytona Beach.
Complete with a cyber-age media center and 21st-century smart classrooms, the new state-of-the-art school replaces the nearly 50-year-old original. The campus is not only much larger, but is equipped with amenities including a computer lab, a television production studio, a much larger gymnasium and a 1,000-seat football stadium. MORE
08.09.08 | Return to Top
Do you have the voice of an angel?
Auditions are being held in the Archdiocese of Miami for high school singers for the second annual Voice of an Angel contest Saturday, Aug. 16. Auditions will take place beginning at 5:30 p.m. at Dolphin Stadium, 2269 Dan Marino Blvd., Miami Gardens. For details, more information and links see the articles, “Catholic singer to perform at Marlins game” and “Jaci Velasquez: ‘God’s love is the reason that I sing.’”
Ed Foster Jr. | 08.09.08 | Return to Top
Haitian mission children on a mission
DELRAY BEACH | Children and teens from a Haitian mission church here are back from a mission trip of their own during which they worked with other Haitian children in the Dominican Republic.
The trip was an experience not soon to be forgotten by the youngsters – who said they learned lessons along the way – and the priest who took them.
“They spoke in Creole,” explained Jessica Formul, 18, a participant, about the children she met while on the trip who touched her heart in a special way during personal conversations. “They wanted to know what we were doing in our lives. They asked what they could do to be like us. I told them to pray and to go to school.” MORE
08.09.08 | Return to Top
Graduates leave legacy: Join your parish youth group!
MILTON | As they were preparing to graduate from high school, members of the youth group at St. Rose of Lima Parish composed “legacies” for their younger peers, listing the top 10 reasons to join a youth group at a parish. Read some of their reasons here.
08.09.08 | Return to Top
Summer of service helps shape teens’ faith, hearts
ORLANDO | Whether it was helping to fix the homes of the poor and elderly, stocking food pantry shelves, bringing smiles to the faces of sick children or going to World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia, teens across the Orlando Diocese have interesting answers to that first-day-of-school question: “What did you do on your summer vacation?”
Teens served others, themselves and God in tasks that took them as close as their local church and as far as the other side of the world.
“My son Andrew came home from Catholic HEART Workcamp,” shared Cathy Canto of Resurrection Parish in Lakeland. He said, “‘Mom, now I understand why you love Jesus so much.’”
“It was amazing because people in the parish worked together to help other people – we worked together to spread God’s love,” said Andrew Canto, 14, who will be a freshman in high school next year. MORE
08.01.08 | Return to Top
‘Alive in You’ develops mind, body and spirit
CASSELBERRY | Jim Weir is the youth ministry director at St. Augustine Parish here. He and his wife, Heather, recognized the need for an experience for teens that balanced work, Catholic spirituality and education with community building and leadership skills. They developed the Alive in You Catholic Conference and Service Camp.
“Our call as Catholics is to serve,” Jim Weir said. “We watch the transformation of the teens as they are serving the needs of others. We help them process the service experience. It finally clicks, and when they return home it’s a way of life.” MORE
08.01.08 | Return to Top
Teens develop skills, renew faith at summer retreats
ORLANDO | Many teens found self-enrichment another way to spend their summer break. The weekend of June 13-15 found teens from parishes throughout the diocese heading south to the Steubenville Florida Youth Conference 2008 at Lynn University in Boca Raton or to San Pedro Retreat Center in Winter Park for the diocesan sponsored Catholic Leadership Alive retreat.
St. Paul Parish in Leesburg, Holy Name of Jesus Parish in Indialantic, Most Precious Blood Parish in Oviedo, and Prince of Peace Parish in Ormond Beach all sent participants to the Steubenville event, which was sponsored by the Diocese of Palm Beach and the Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio. Mike Buckler, youth ministry director at Prince of Peace, explained, “The experience of Steubenville, and so close to home, is phenomenal. They experience Christ in the sacraments and they do it in a way that is very powerful and meaningful to young people today.”
Jonathan Kyer, 17, is a senior at Father Lopez High School in Daytona Beach and a Prince of Peace parishioner. He said, “I didn’t want to go at first, but finally gave in to it and started to enjoy it. The speakers were great. We learned a lot. It was pretty interesting. The monstrance and the atmosphere were incredible – you could feel God’s presence there. We met a lot of cool people from other dioceses. I would recommend it for others and of course I’d go again.” MORE
08.01.08 | Return to Top
‘Alive In You’ campers paint Pahokee
PAHOKEE | Nearly 350 young people from the Diocese of Palm Beach and beyond spent a week this summer refurbishing nearly 50 homes and other structures in one of the diocese’s poorest communities.
“I am here to help out the people,” said John Mauldin, 18, a 2008 graduate of John Carroll High School and member of St. Anastasia Parish in Fort Pierce, who will attend the University of Miami this fall. “I enjoy helping and doing things for people. My twin brother, Eddie, is here, too. There are about 10 of us from St. Anastasia and there are 50 or 60 from Vero Beach. What better way to spend summer vacation?” MORE
08.01.08 | Return to Top