December 2004 vol. 41 no. 2

::PRESIDENT’S CORNER

Dear Students, Parents, Teachers, and Friends,

I would like to thank all of you who have helped make our relocation to Willow Glen Middle School a huge success. A very special thank-you goes to Mr. John Tavella, the school's principal, for his tremendous support. I am looking forward to welcoming all of you at our Christmas Party.

::ANNOUNCEMENTS

Come join us for our annual Christmas Party, which will take place at the Germania Hall in downtown San Jose. Date: Sunday, Dec. 12, 2004 Time: 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm Location: Germania Hall 261 N 2nd Street San Jose, CA 95112

A little detail for our Christmas Party: Due to the delicious cake donations and the tasty Saint Martin’s Breads and Goodies, we know that our school has a strong team of gifted bakers. To make this year’s Christmas Party as “gemuetlich” as possible, we are inviting you to bake home-made cookies and goodies for the festivities. It would be very helpful for our dear kitchen elves, if you were able to bring your “donations” to school on Saturday, 12/11!….mmmmh, the good smell and the even better taste of all these treats will be very rewarding for all of us! Thank you in advance for your baking endeavors! AW

We are holding another silent auction fundraiser during the Christmas Party and would like to ask our members for donations of auctionable items. Please bring your items no later than Saturday, December 11 to the school break room/office area. Plan to arrive a little early to the Christmas party. As a special treat, guitarist Daniel Yarritu will perform classical pieces before the commencement of our program and during the intermission. Coffee, Christmas goodies and cake will be served during the intermission.

>There will be NO SCHOOL on December 18, the Satruday after our Christmas Party.

School resumes on Saturday, January 8 2005. First semester ends on January 22, 2005.

First day of second semster begins on January 29, 2005 Our next Parent Morning will take place on February 26, 2005

::NEWS

St. Martin's Celebration 2004

A big THANK-YOU to all of you who participated, baked, volunteered or helped in any other way to make this year’s Saint Martin’s Party a great Success. A special Thank you goes to Herbert and Karin from the German Saturday School in Menlo Park, who entertained us with a remarkable puppet presentation of the Fairy Tail of “Haensel und Gretel”. After the puppet-show we enjoyed a very short, but beautiful lantern parade and sang afterwards our Saint Martin songs by a traditional Martin’s fire. The evening was rounded out by all of us gathering in the festive Santa Maria Hall, enjoying each others company, hot drinks and a variety of home made Saint Martin’s goodies and breads. AW

Cookie Lee Fundraiser

A big thank you also to Amanda Weitzel for organizing the Cookie Lee jewelry fundraiser for our school. We were able to successfully raise money for the PTA and provide a holiday purchasing avenue for our members through the sales of Cookie Lee’s high quality jewelry.

E-Scrip Fundraiser

Please remember to sign up for our E-Scrip program! This is also an important avenue to raise money for the school. Signing up is easy, simply follow the link below and register. Every purchase you make at any of the major grocers and retailers sponsoring E-Scrip will generate a percentage of the sales towards our school. Details can be found at: http://www.sbds.org/fundraising.htm or simply sign up at http://www.escrip.com

Albertson's Fundraiser:

To participate and earn money for the school, participants need to sign up their Albertsons' Preferred Savings Card. This can be done either Albertson's online or through a mail-in registration form. We will make these forms available at school. If supporters have been issued a replacement Preferred Card after registration, they will need to re-register in the Community Partners program with the new Preferred Card.

As always THANK YOU for your continued support. On behalf of the SBDS Board and Teaching Staff, we wish you all happy and safe holidays!