Hey STL, throughout the year, Athletic Council promoted and encouraged a healthy, active lifestyle to our student body. Our council has been able to successfully oversee our athletic program by coordinating with team coaches to ensure that they have had everything needed for a great season. Prior to the Christmas break, AC ran Sports Night at STL. This event consisted of sports trivia through our @stl_lions_athletics Instagram, in order to test the sports knowledge of our lions. Hundreds of students participated in this successful event and prizes were awarded to the top 3 winners! In February, AC did a collaboration with Intramural Council to help kick off the Winter Olympics. As Athletic Council, we created a daily medal count in order for students to keep up to date with Canada’s Olympic Athletes. Our Council’s annual Health Awareness Week took place in March and was a big hit! Throughout the week, we broadcasted health related videos that focused on healthy eating, the importance of exercising, the benefits of getting the right amount of sleep, and tips to improve one’s mental health. This event also included Booster Juice sales and a motivational speaker, Dwayne Morgan, who highlighted the importance of taking care of your mental health. Athletic Council also hosted the most desirable event of the year, the Athletic Banquet. We dedicated an entire night to recognize the contributions of our coaches and athletes by awarding outstanding athletic achievements. The theme for this year's banquet was the “Return of the Roar.” This highlighted the difficulty of the past couple of years and the return of our athletic program and lion athletes. Thank you to everyone who participated in these events and we look forward to your support and participation in the new year! We would also like to thank our advisors, Ms. Veitch and Ms. Ventrella, for their continued support and dedication to our council.
Written by: Kaitlyn and Romelo
As we approach the end of June, Cub Council is proud to report on another productive year of integrating grade 9 students into the STL community and equipping them for success in future years. We fondly reminisce about the 4 major events our council members and teacher advisors worked diligently to host: Cub Classroom, Christmas Cards for 360Kids, Hoppy Hunting, and Leadership Workshops. Although it has been a busy year for Cub Council, we hope you were able to take part in some of these events to make our initiatives truly worthwhile.
In September, we kicked off the school year with our very own: “Cub Classroom”! This Google Classroom, managed by Cub Council, is an accessible central resource that provides recruitment information on all of STL’s co-curricular activities. By familiarizing cubs with the necessary means to get engaged at STL, we created consistency among students (remote and in-person), so that their progression in high school was as seamless as possible. During the week leading up to Christmas break, Cub Council also ran a Christmas Card-making event, where students of all grades could make Christmas cards for children and youth at the local non-profit, 360Kids. In recognition of the growing student demand for community service hours during this pandemic, we incorporated the opportunity for students to gain volunteer hours for participating. We raised over 100 Christmas cards in just 4 days thanks to the generosity and compassion of STL’s student body! In April, we had over 50 grade 9s join us for our Easter social, Hoppy Hunting, which was designed to help them get to know their peers better and build teamwork skills, in an effort to inspire their STL involvement. This event was a great success, with lots of fun activities including an egg and spoon race, trivia tic-tac-toe, and an Easter egg hunt (as well as free snacks)! Our Leadership Workshops, which took place on May 3rd and 5th, sought to inform students of the application process for student government and the various extracurricular clubs and chapters STL has to offer. It was an amazing opportunity for us all to learn more about what it means to be an active member of the STL community!
With the school year coming to a close, Cub Council would like to extend a huge thanks to its dedicated members who worked tirelessly and demonstrated an unwavering passion for our mission. Thank you to our teacher advisors, Ms. Spano and Ms. Perciballi, for your tremendous support and cooperation this year. We would also like to thank everyone who interacted with Cub Council this year - we are honoured to have serviced you and are eager to create more memories together next year!
Written by: Danielle, Kisorn, and Miriam
Hey STL! After celebrating Where You At in November, starting our Cultural Calendar Initiative in February (which ran during the entire second semester), and hosting Black Heritage Month throughout February, Diversity and Equity is grateful for all the support from students and staff.
In March, D&E, in collaboration with STWIL, held a brand new event called Women of the World to shine a spotlight on a few specific issues prevalent in the lives of Canadian women today by bringing attention to issues usually swept under the rug. The topics D&E specifically discussed included an introduction to gender norms, the patriarchy, misogyny and their negative effects, gender-based violence, intersectionality of BIPOC women, positive impacts of women on society, and a final call to action. Through Instagram posts, videos, posters, and booths, D&E and STWIL educated the STL student body on the female and gender minority experience in an interactive and digestible manner.
In the past, D&E has held Culturalicious in May to recognize cultural diversity through food and dance on one night. This year, however, we decided to revamp Culturalicious into Where in the World, a fun, month-long event that allowed students a chance to dive deeper into different continents and the vast cultures present within, while still learning about injustices faced by many people. The first two weeks of May also honoured Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Students were able to win raffle tickets by participating in cultural games, a poster hunt, musical playlist submissions, and many more activities to win either tickets to the ROM, tickets to the Aga Khan Museum, and a gift card to Krispy Kreme. We are extremely thankful to those sponsors for providing us with many prizes for the event!
Overall, Diversity and Equity had an extremely positive and successful year, with many students buzzing about our events and applying for council; this year, we had the highest number of applicants and we are so thankful to everyone for their interest in joining our council. Though this school year is ending, there is much more to come for next year, and D&E is excited to continue showcasing the diverse spirit present within our school. Check out our Instagram page (@stldiversityandequity) for more information on all our past events this year!
A huge shoutout goes to our amazing advisor, Ms. Johnston, who joined us halfway through the year and helped our council grow immensely by providing us with the best support. Another shoutout goes to Ms. Akleh, as well as our next president for the 2022-23 school year, Madison Nguyen, and VP, Nava Tavasoli! Good luck to the future council, and to graduating members, we wish you all the best in your future endeavors!
Written by: Sahej and Sophia
It has been a very busy and eventful year for STL’s Enviro Council. Despite facing the challenges of running meetings and planning initiatives while transitioning back from an online learning environment to an in-person one, Enviro was able to successfully execute a Plastics in Seas initiative, Enviro Week full of varying events, and a weekly recycling distribution.
This year, Enviro chose to focus on “behind the scenes” work that needed to be done to take STL to the next level in terms of awareness and environmental responsibility. From growing our social media presence by posting Monday Tips on how to live a more sustainable life, to maintaining the memorial garden and creating a water fountain map to alert students to water bottle refill stations around the school, Enviro was able to fix many of STL’s small flaws that often go unnoticed. Enviro also added on to one of our most important initiatives, the weekly recycling distribution, by designing and posting informative stickers that would help to educate students on which items would be considered recyclable, and which ones would be considered garbage. Finally, Enviro performed an assessment of the inventory of blue, green, and gray bins present in each classroom, and supplied each class with the bins they were missing to ensure that proper recycling procedures could be implemented and followed.
The 2021-2022 STL Enviro Council would like to thank Ms. Elliott, our school administration team, our council members, and most of all, the entire STL community for their cooperation and enthusiasm during this year’s initiatives. We hope that we were able to help everyone gain a better understanding of why it is important to care about the environment, and how we can live a more environmentally friendly life.
Written by: Yoojin and Savita
This past school year was one to remember as Intramural Council returned to hosting in-school events and activities. Through our various drop-ins, our members made sure that our STL community could once again come together and enjoy playing sports. Many cherished traditions were continued, but there were also plenty of first time and wonderful memories that were made.
We kicked off the year by focusing on our newest members to STL and showed them what our school is all about with our junior dodgeball drop-in. This allowed them to get to know each other and experience the true Lion spirit that we all embrace. Of course, we couldn’t forget our seniors, and therefore we ran a second dodgeball drop-in for the Grades 11s and 12s to let them in on the fun. With the support we received from these early events, we decided to run our main event, Intra-week. This four day initiative offered a new daily activity for students to participate in during all three lunches: Wii Tennis, Ping-Pong, Mini-Basketball, and a brand new Cup Game ㅡ we had it all! This all culminated with the return of a popular event, the basketball drop-in. Open to all students no matter the grade, it allowed the STL school community to come together and have fun.
New to this year, we decided to run our first volleyball drop-in, as opposed to hosting our traditional teacher versus student volleyball buy-in. The event turned out to be a massive success, that when given the opportunity, we opted to run it a second time. Full of enthusiastic players and teachers, this last event ended off with a tense game between our STL teachers and skillful students. Through some classy plays and amazing defense, the wonderful teacher team was able to slip by with the win.
Intramural would like to thank everyone who came out to participate ㅡ you not only made these events so exciting and unforgettable, but also helped spread so much STL spirit. To our Grade 12s leaving us, we wish you the best of luck, and to everyone else, we hope to see you all next year!
Written by: Victoria Pergola, Dylan Chin and Maya Korvat
Hey STL! The Social Justice Council would like to thank STL for its year-long support and participation. Throughout the year, COVID has drastically impacted the issues the Social Justice Council tackles within our community. Despite this, our Christmas fundraiser, Operation Saint Nick, was a huge success, with extensive student volunteering and considerable donations to 360kids, Good Shepherd, and Gift of Christmas (the Indigenous organization)! This past May and June, we hosted our popular event, Daily World Updates, where we discussed many different topics. We covered mental health, lack of access to education, religious persecution, menstrual awareness (in collaboration with STL’s Women in Leadership club), and LGBTQIA+ discrimination. Our goal was to bring awareness and education to the STL body on these crucial issues in an engaging form, which is why we accompanied these boards with fun activities like cup pong, trivia, and jeopardy.
In celebration of June being National Indigenous History Month, Social Justice is currently holding an event for students to learn more about Indigenous cultures around Canada and the struggles they have and continue to face. We will cover a wide range of topics, including Canadian Indigenous history, the significance of land acknowledgments, the lack of healthcare, and much more! We have created posts, video announcements, and a small mural in front of the school (near the cross). We also had a school-wide presentation where Mr. Martinello talked about St. Theresa's specific Indigenous history and where we will show STL's own land acknowledgment to the school body.
As the end of the school year approaches, the Social Justice Council wants to thank everyone for their continued engagement and involvement throughout our events. We are looking forward to working with you all next year!
Written by: Fatima and Connie
Spirit Council had two main events in the second semester. After Easter, we held our Guess the Number of Eggs in the Jar event. Many students participated in this event, and believe it or not, we had five students who guessed the exact amount. Congratulations to the lucky winners who received their chocolate prizes. At the beginning of May, we held our Spirit Week. Students enjoyed Karaoke, Mario Kart, Word Games and Trivia. We also dedicated a day for students to learn the STL cheers. These cheers are used at our sporting events and at other special events throughout the year. We want to thank all graduating students, and we wish them the best of luck in the future. We are excited to raise the school spirit next year. Until then, have a great summer STL.
Hey STL! As the school year is approaching its end we would like to say a big thank you to all of the STL staff and student body for their ongoing support. Transitioning back into in person learning along with covid restrictions, we unfortunately could not run some of the students' favourite events this year; however, we were able to bring multiple events to STL for our incredible students. We started off with selling Student Price Cards in October, and ended up selling out of every single SPC card we ordered. It allowed students to conveniently access discounts and savings in places all around them for the full year. In time for the holiday season, we continued our next event with the STElf on the shelf. We received responses from over 100 students who searched for the hidden elf every day with the help of a few clues. Our students' favourite event was at the end of the year, where we ran Student Appreciation Week for the third straight year! Students had the opportunity to voice their favourite things about the school year, and to let us know what their summer plans are. This was followed up with the candy counting contest which received over 200 guesses from students! The final day featured “photos with Rory,” where students and teachers all around the school got to pose and take photos with our school mascot Rory the Lion. Student Council is excited to continue on with bigger plans next year, with hopes to bring back even more of your favourite events like Semi Formal. Once again we would like to say a big thank you to all the students who participated in our events, our amazing council members, Ms. Florio and Ms. Tassone for being wonderful advisors, and Ms. Ah-Chin along with all of the school staff. Good luck to the graduating class of 2022 on your future endeavours, and to all students for their years at STL!
Written by: Yash Khandelwal