Hi,

I spent all of Monday receiving payments and registration information of the different vendors that were going to participate in the Leadership Conference of August 7. This task, while not in any way related to history, is nonetheless demanding and good preparation for what one could expect in the real world as conferences and big meetings approach. Part of the complication throughout the day was receiving multiple emails of vendors confirming that they had paid, or receiving from fellow employees, duplicate emails of receipts of paid vendors. Hence, it became my responsibility to sort out all the information, toss out the duplicate emails, and enter them into a database with all the information of the participants attending.

This conference is one that is held every year to kick-off the school year. Principals and personnel from schools attend, as well as the Superintendent and Assistant Superintendents (now called Regional Directors) to inform all the schools on what to expect and what to do in the upcoming school year. Along with them, vendors from different affiliates of the Office of Catholic Schools come along, like Van Gogh pictures and FedEx.

One of the major topics which will be hit on is the new campaign launched by the Archdiocese, To Teach Who Christ Is. This is a three year campaign in which individual Catholic families will be asked to consider providing monetary assistance for the sake of Catholic schooling and religious education in general. While this may seem quite demanding, it must be kept in mind that many of the families that receive Catholic education are neither Catholic nor capable of paying for Catholic education. Thus, they have to ask for aid from the Office of Catholic Schools and other partners, like the Big Shoulders Fund. And whilst this itself might also seem unimportant, it has to be kept in mind that parents chose to send their children to Catholic schools because they are well aware of what the other possible institutions would be, which would be schools in which gangs and violence are prevalent.

And so, let us pray that this campaign is successful, more than anything, for the sake of students who would not even be focused in school were it not for their Catholic schooling.

Peace,