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Purpose of the Student Stewardship Program

From Our Lady of Lourdes Stewardship Directory:

Our parish has been bestowed with an abundance of gifts. These gifts from God demonstrate His unending mercy and love. Love begets love. Our love for God is expressed through our obedience to God’s command to love Him with all our heart, mind and soul and to love one another… Our Lady of Lourdes is a stewardship parish. We believe we are a blessed people and that we have a responsibility to answer God’s call to discipleship.

In serving our parish’s commitment to this stewardship model, St. Mary’s Colgan Catholic High School has implemented the following Student Stewardship Program aimed at forming witnesses and leaders and celebrating each person’s need to give.

Stewardship Hours

The student body at St. Mary’s Colgan volunteers hundreds of hours each year to its school, church, family, and civic communities. This Student Stewardship Program both celebrates these tremendous gifts by codifying the service given and also creates the minimum giving levels needed to ensure the participation in service of all students. Students in each grade each year are required to volunteer a minimum 15 hours of service, though they are encouraged to report the hours of service beyond this requirement. Students are to complete at least 5 hours of service in the Fall semester and at least 5 in the Spring semester, unless extraordinary circumstances prevent this---please notify the school chaplain). Students will volunteer in four general areas:

Family: A minimum of 10 hours during high school to count toward 60 hour total.

Service should be above one’s “regular”/expected chores. Parents may sign.

School: A minimum of 10 hours during high school to count toward 60 hour total.

School hours include work done for teachers, coaches, administration;

School hours do not cover school-sponsored groups working for the wider community (these hours would count for community service, i.e. Spanish club tutoring at the library)

Church: A minimum of 10 hours during high school to count toward 60 hour total.

Examples: serving/reading at weekend Mass, teaching PSR, assisting with parish activities

Community/Neighbor: A minimum of 20 hours given to the wider Pittsburg-area community. Ten of these hours (Senior Service) will be at a single, pre-approved agency during Senior Year or the summer before. This may be direct service to an agency or cause, may be political action (in keeping with Catholic principles), or may be student-created service to the wider community. All Senior Service must be pre-approved by the School Chaplain.

Procedures and Policies

Students should be familiar with the following procedures and policies and are encouraged to ask for pre-approval from administration for any service activity which may be questionable.

Teachers and school administrators will advertise to students known service opportunities, students though should seek out on their own opportunities to serve.
Students must not receive monetary gain for their service, nor use it for adjudicated work.
The official log of stewardship hours will be kept on Powerschool.
Students are to submit the official Student Stewardship Form after service hours are performed; phone calls may not be substituted for this form and only rarely may other written communications be substituted for the form.
Service done during break times through the school year and during the summer may count toward the 15 hours.
Service done during school time does not count toward hours.
Service during weekend Masses (serving, singing in choir) count only if the student attends a separate Mass as well.
Failure to meet the 15 hour minimum requirement per year will result in withholding of grades, class schedules, and/or transcripts until the student’s obligation is met.
Students will qualify for the Extra Mile Service Award only if all basic requirements of the Stewardship Program have been met.
Any service hours reported beyond the minimum each year will be accumulated toward the student receiving the Extra Mile Service Award.

Extra Mile Service Award

The EMSA recognizes those students who have demonstrated a commitment to lived service. Students earning this award have met the minimum requirements of the Student Stewardship Program and have volunteered at least an additional 60 hours of service to others during their high school career at St. Mary’s Colgan. The additional hours served may have been volunteered to one agency or may have been given in a variety of service venues. The sheer number of hours, though, is an indication that the student gives not simply to a need but that he or she recognizes the need to give.

Students earning the EMSA will have this noted on their official high school transcript and will be recognized as a recipient during the high school graduation ceremony.

The Form

For a student’s service work to be recorded, he or she must submit to the school office the Student Stewardship Form. Copies of this form can be found in the school office, with any Religion teacher, or on the school web site. Students are encouraged to submit forms immediately following their service work. Service forms submitted after the second Monday in May may not be processed before graduation or final grades for the year and may delay the student’s timely receipt of report cards or transcripts.

Questions regarding any part of the Student Stewardship Program may be made to the School Chaplain.