What’s recently happened?
On July 11, Marquette Catholic High School’s National Honor Society (NHS) began going on service trips to the Michigan City Salvation Army. During these service trips, small groups of students commit their time to assisting the Salvation Army employees in their tasks such as putting together toiletry bags and helping to arrange the food pantry. So far, the Marquette NHS has organized and participated in four trips to the Salvation Army.
The NHS is a national organization that focuses on scholarship, leadership, service, and character, otherwise known as the four pillars. Most high schools have chapters of NHS, and these chapters are expected to uphold the four pillars. However, Marquette’s chapter of NHS breaks through expectations, with members donating time out of their summer to do service for the less fortunate in their community.
The Marquette NHS emphasizes the importance of service within the chapter, having countless service opportunities throughout the year, including several blood drives, a cocoa and canvas event for the Marquette School community, and several other events during the school year.
The Marquette NHS plans to continue their dedication to service with plans to continue their service trips to Salvation Army for the rest of the summer.
What’s coming up?
Thursday, August 3, began the 14th Annual Great Lakes Grand Prix in Michigan City. This is a four day boating event featuring many incredibly impressive boats and racers from all over the world.
The Great Lakes Grand Prix is known for featuring some of the world’s most powerful offshore boats in the world. Over 70 teams come to race and compete for the title of fastest boat on Lake Michigan. The competition is fierce, with crowds gathering to watch some of the best racers in the world compete.
This free event was kicked off with a VIP party at Sunset Grille, a restaurant located on the Washington Park Beach. This exclusive party concluded a day packed full of arriving racers, boats pulling up to the beach and racing registration.
Registration day was followed up by a day of rigorous boat inspections, as well as a racer meet and greet in the evening.
The main part of the event begins on August 5 at 2 p.m., when time trials are held. These trials are held between two lower level boat races. The day concludes with a block party which includes many local businesses lining Michigan City’s downtown district.
On Sunday, August 6, the races begin at 10 a.m., running a 4 mile course, before concluding at 5 p.m. The winners will be announced in an award ceremony at 7 p.m. at the Blue Chip Casino.
Community Member Spotlight:
Stacey Cassady is an Upper Level English Teacher and National Honor Society Sponsor at Marquette Catholic High School.
Cassady has just concluded her first year as the Marquette NHS sponsor. During her first year, Cassady has taken incredible strides towards making the Marquette NHS a service oriented organization.
“The NHS has several things in the works,” she said. “They already served at the Salvation Army in Michigan City (MC) four times this summer! Coming up we have an American Cross Blood Drive on September 15, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Scholl Center, Cocoa & Canvas for Christmas, and continued volunteering at several places in the community like the soup kitchen & Salvation Army. We will be working with our new students during orientation too, helping fellow Blazers get organized for school, answering questions, and most importantly, welcoming them all to our Marquette family.”
Under Cassady’s guidance, the Marquette NHS has not only made great contributions to the outside community, but within the school as well.
“One of my personal favorite things is helping Marquette teachers with things they might need. NHS sponsors several ‘dress-downs’ throughout the year and the money goes to a different teacher each time to use for their classrooms and/or curriculum. It was an idea from last year’s NHS that we will be continuing this year (by unanimous vote), and we are on schedule to have awarded every faculty member $250 by the end of this school year,” said Cassady.
Cassady has also been planning new, refreshing ways to better the Marquette chapter of the National Honor Society and the Marquette community as a whole.
“Last year’s NHS group was working on putting together what they called the ‘Battle Buddies’ plan,” she said. “The idea is to form several groups with students from each grade level that would work as a team as they ‘battle’ through school. The goals are to have these groups help each other with homework, questions, mentoring, attending school events together, and do community volunteering together. I hope we can get it going.”
Along with being the Marquette NHS sponsor, Cassady is also the Marquette junior class sponsor, donating her time to helping the juniors through their year and helping to arrange school spirit events. She has been teaching at Marquette since January of 2020, having taught at Valparaiso University for eight years, and at Portage Christian High School for two years before that.