Faith ND: A Gift from NDAA - Notre Dame Club of Greater Orlando

Vol. 14 No. 4
December, 2014
Faith ND
Feast on the 50
Capital One Cup
Graduation Success Rate
Second Harvest Food Bank
Leprechaun Logo
Habitat for Humanity
Hope CommUnity Center
Hesburgh Lecture
Fr. Badin’s Bible
Item of Interest
Go to www.ndsmcobserver.com
to read the digital edition of The
Observer.
You’ll never miss
important campus news.
December:
Music City Bowl – 30th
January:
Early Admit Reception – 3rd
Holiday Luncheon – 8th
Basketball Game Watch – 28th
February:
College Fair – 28th
March:
Newsletter Vol. 15 No. 1
Faith ND: A Gift from NDAA
In November, 2012 the Notre Dame
Alumni Association launched a new
website called Faith ND but the
NDAA discovered that many
alumni were unaware of its
existence.
The University has
asked that every alumni club spread
the word through its newsletter.
The beautifully illustrated website
is
both
comprehensive
and
interactive. It serves as a resource
for the faithful who are interested in
exploring
spirituality,
prayer,
service, and the intellectual aspects
of their faith.
The first section entitled Pray
contains that day’s Gospel followed
by a reflection and a short prayer.
You can email someone a
personalized prayer card or you can
request a Mass or a prayer and
lighted candle at the Grotto.
resources for those who wish to
serve are links to Directory of
Service Opportunities and Club
Locator Tool.
The last section called Explore is
for those who want to delve more
deeply into their faith. It describes
how the Catholic mission is
fulfilled on campus and includes
links to lectures by Notre Dame
professors. An interactive section
called Always Wanted to Know
allows you to submit questions
(anonymously if you wish): What
are indulgences? What are some
examples of infallible statements?
Explore this gift from the Notre
Dame Alumni Association at
faith.nd.edu.
Exploring the second section called
Live you’ll find areas dedicated to
forgiveness, grief and loss, family
life and work life. This section also
contains excerpts from Pope
Francis’ first encyclical letter
Lumen Fedei and his apostolic
exhortation Evangelii Gaudium.
Section number three entitled Serve
highlights degree programs such as
Master of Divinity, Master of
Sacred Music and both bachelors
and advanced degrees in Peace
Studies.
Particularly valuable
A sample prayer card, this one
contains a Prayer for the Sick.
Florida Citrus Sports Kicks Off With “Feast on the 50”
It was like a giant tailgate party without the football game. On December 7, in the newlyrenovated Citrus Bowl, schools from the ACC, Big 10, SEC, American Athletic Conference and
others set up their alumni tents and showed their school spirit. Tim Kiley and Caleb Keenan
made the arrangements for the Notre Dame Club of Greater Orlando to participate.
Caleb and Tonya Keenan decorated our club’s new Notre Dame tent, first unveiled at our
summer picnic. Kieran Bulger brought the ND banners and flags. Rob Thomson supplied the
giveaways, 100 color-changing cups with the NDOrlando logo. The cups were clear when empty
but turned green when a cold liquid was added. What was the cold liquid? Beer, of course.
Tim Kiley reported that many in attendance expressed their disappointment that the team
stumbled at the end of the season. Florida Citrus Sports had been hoping to get the Irish back
in Orlando this year for the Russell Athletic Bowl. In 2011, when Notre Dame played Florida
State in the Champs Sports Bowl (its former name), tickets sold out in just a few days.
Regardless, FCS surely appreciated that our club participated in Feast on the 50 and they look
forward to hosting Notre Dame in the future.
Tim Kiley, Lindsay Kiley, Mike George (Leprechaun), David Byrnes (with
color-changing NDOrlando cup), Kieran Bulger, Ron Hobbs. Notice that
our tent was positioned right next to the LSU tent, our opponent in this
year’s Music City Bowl.
The event wasn’t just for alumni; it was for their families too. There was lots of food plus a kids’
section with bounce house, face painting and balloons. The event concluded with a spectacular
fireworks display.
Notre Dame Men Win Capital One Cup
The Capital One Cup is awarded each year to the best Division I men’s and
women’s college athletic programs in the country. Points are accumulated
throughout the year based on final standings in NCAA Championships and
coaches polls.
The Notre Dame men’s sports program won the 2014
Capital One Cup thanks to top 10 finishes in soccer, lacrosse
and fencing. The Irish women’s program finished 19th.
The Capital One website describes the trophy as symbolizing “the embodiment
of hard work, dedication, and an enduring commitment to excellence. . . . The
silver surface reflects the images of all those who carry it.”
An amazing 22 of 26 sports qualified for post-season competition and three
Irish student-athletes were crowned individual NCAA national champions:
Emma Reaney in swimming, Lee Kiefer in women’s fencing/foil and Gerek
Meinhardt in men’s fencing/foil.
The most prestigious individual award was presented to women’s soccer defender Elizabeth
Tucker who was named NCAA Woman of the Year. She scored 19 goals with 14 assists and was
a two-time team captain. She did this while earning a perfect 4.0 GPA and contributing 300
community service hours per year in 12 different volunteer activities.
ND Claims 2014 National Championship in Graduation Success Rate
For the 8th consecutive year, the University of Notre Dame has finished first for graduating its
student-athletes in all sports. Notre Dame posted the top NCAA Graduation Success Rate (GSR)
beating out all other football-playing institutions in the Football
Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division 1-A).
98% of males, 100% of females and 96% of black studentathletes earned their Notre
Dame degrees. Here are the
top schools for studentathletes who enrolled as
freshmen between 2004 and
2007:
1. Notre Dame 99
2. Stanford 98
3. Duke 97
4. Northwestern 96
5. (tie) UCF, Boston College
95
Young Alumni Volunteer at the
Second Harvest Food Bank
The Second Harvest Food Bank moved into
its new facility in March, 2013. No longer
would it have to turn away food donations
due to inadequate capacity. In the last
fiscal year, the first year at the new
location, 19,514 tons of food was collected
and distributed through 550 partner
agencies throughout the six county central
Florida area.
The Notre Dame Club had already helped
the Second Harvest Food Bank in May
during the U.S. Postal Service Stamp Out
Hunger food drive. We met the mail trucks returning from their rounds at the Lake Mary post
office, unloaded food donations, sorted them into huge boxes and loaded them onto the
Second Harvest trailer.
It’s hard to appreciate the enormous size of the
Second Harvest facility unless you see it for yourself.
On December 13, Young Alumni members of our club met at the new Second Harvest facility to
help out again and they were assigned to the fruit detail. Kieran Bulger, who arranged the
service opportunity, estimated that they sorted over 1,000 apples and oranges into bags.
Mike George, Ron Hobbs, Michael Loulan, James Murphy, Kieran
Bulger, Ben & Kirsten Ramsour, David Millay
Kirsten Ramsour in her
NotreDame Accounting
sweatshirt was chosen
to keep the tally.
Man Behind Leprechaun Logo Passes
TRIVIA QUESTION: What was the Notre Dame mascot/logo before it was a Leprechaun?
Jim T. Butz ND’49 worked on the sports information staff for the football team as a student.
After graduation he returned for every home football game for 31 years to work in the press
box as a United Press “stringer” (a part-time newspaper correspondent covering local news for
a paper published elsewhere).
In the mid-1960s, the University planned to change its current
mascot, an Irish Terrier named Clashmore. At that time Jim Butz
was working for Wilson Sporting Goods and he immediately thought
of Ted Drake, an illustrator for Wilson. Jim asked Ted to create a
symbol for Notre Dame, something that would signify their Irish
heritage, and the Leprechaun was born. Jim gave Tim’s drawing to
the University in 1965 and the Leprechaun became the official
mascot.
Jim Butz died October 12, at the age of 90 and was buried at Cedar Grove Cemetery on campus.
Notre Dame Club
Construction Battalion
Over 4 million people from
low-income families around
the world have found new
hope in the form of
affordable housing through
Habitat for Humanity. H4H
celebrated its 800,000 house
in November, 2013 and is on
track to build its one
millionth house before the
end of 2015.
Joe Gavigan arranged for
club members to work on a
Mary Heaton, Colin Hoepker, Ed & Monica Acuna, and Joe Gavigan Habitat house in Winter Park
on November 1. Last year,
are joined by two Habitat workers and two unnamed high school
the Notre Dame construction
students who say they love Notre Dame.
battalion started on the
ground floor—literally. They shoveled dirt to prepare for the pouring of the foundation. This
year the framing was going up and they spent the day wielding hammers and paint brushes.
ND Club Helps Bring Christmas Joy to Farm Workers
The Hope CommUnity Center, originally called the
Diocesan Farm Worker Ministry, was founded in 1971
by four of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. Their
ministry got its start in the fields of Apopka where
laborers earned low wages with no benefits, had no
health care, no schools for their children and lived in
appalling labor camps. Through their efforts, these
Hispanic, Haitian, and African-American migrant
workers and their families now have a network of
seven well-staffed health clinics, a credit union to
Boxes and bags of toys to be sorted.
protect their hard-earned wages, educational and
family services and, very importantly, advocacy for
policy change.
Each year our club helps the sisters set up their
Santa Shop in St. Francis of Assisi’s church hall in
Apopka. New unwrapped toys are donated, not just
from the local area, but also from the Monsignor
Slade Catholic School in Glen Burnie, Maryland, a
school founded by the same order of sisters in
1954. This year Southwest Airlines flew three dozen
large boxes of toys to Orlando at no charge and
Many expensive toys were donated:
Darden Restaurants hired a van to transport the toys bicycles, scooters and skateboards
to the church hall.
The donations were first sorted into
categories such as balls, games, dolls, crafts,
and clothes and then the items were priced at
one-third of their original cost. Every year
fewer and fewer toys have price tags and we
spent a lot of time scanning barcodes with
our smartphones to determine the proper
price.
The farm workers have the pride of
purchasing Christmas gifts for their children
Rob Thomson, Tom Steedle and Dave Anderson and the monies collected go right back into
proudly display the games and puzzles table.
the ministry to support their ever-expanding
programs. Last year Hope CommUnity Center
sent 132 kids to camp, tutored over 600 children in after-school programs, enrolled 550 adults
in GED, citizenship and language classes and helped 3,500 people obtain social services such as
food stamps, clinic referrals and unemployment compensation. Two hundred high school
students received academic counseling and 93% of seniors pursued post-secondary education.
Save the Date: Basketball Game Watch
Join fellow club members when the Irish take on ACC opponent, the Duke Blue Devils on
January 28 at 7:30 pm. Check your email for the location.
Dr. George Lopez Returns for Second Hesburgh Lecture
In October, 2012 club member Paul Vasquez arranged for his former
Notre Dame professor, Dr. George Lopez, to be our Hesburgh Lecturer.
At the time, Dr. Lopez held the Hesburgh Chair in Peace Studies at Notre
Dame’s Kroc Institute. The event was so well received and attended that
he was invited back to Orlando to be our 2014 lecturer.
After 27 years at the Kroc
Institute, however, Dr. Lopez
has assumed a new position
as of September, 2013. He is now the Vice President and
Director of the Academy for International Conflict
Management and Peacebuilding at the United States
Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1984,
the USIP describes itself as “an independent, nonpartisan
institution established and funded by Congress to
increase the nation’s capacity to manage international
conflict without violence.”
United States Institute
of Peace Logo
On the afternoon of October 16, Dr. Lopez gave a lecture to over 100 students at Valencia
College which has its own Peace and Justice Initiative. Members of the Notre Dame Club were
also in attendance to hear him speak about how to intervene to achieve peaceful resolution of
conflicts on the international stage. That same evening he spoke at a dinner at Valencia that
was attended, not only by ND Club members, but also by thirty community and religious
leaders. The evening discussion centered more on dealing with resolution of local issues
especially in the Parramore area around the new Amway Center.
Mary Heaton, Kathleen Sabol and Gail Burbank were instrumental in arranging the day’s
events and coordinating with Rachel Allen of Valencia College.
We expect to be seeing a lot more of George Lopez and his wife Debbie in the future. They
just bought a condo in New Smyrna Beach and expressed interest in joining our club.
Historic Bible Returned to Notre Dame
In 1793, Rev. Stephen Badin became the first priest ordained in the
United States, at a time when Catholics comprised less than one-percent
of the population. At the ordination, Bishop John Carroll of Baltimore
gave Fr. Badin a bible that he had inscribed to him, a rare three-volume
edition of the Douay-Rheims version published only three years earlier.
This was the first Catholic bible published in the U.S. Fewer than 400
copies were sold and only 26 are known to have survived.
Fr. Badin served as a frontier missionary in Kentucky, Illinois and Indiana.
He built his mission headquarters, a simple log chapel, on a 542 acre site
in northern Indiana that he later donated to the bishop of Vincennes. In 1842, the bishop
granted this tract of land to Rev. Edward Sorin, C.S.C. to build the great university that he
envisioned. When Fr. Sorin and his eight fellow French priests arrived on November 26, the
only building they found in the snow-covered forest was the now-dilapidated log chapel.
Undaunted by the enormity of his project, Fr. Sorin confidently named his vision L’Universite de
Notre Dame du Lac.
The log chapel was destroyed by fire in 1858 but an exact replica was rebuilt on the same site in
1906. Fr. Badin died in 1853 and was originally buried in Cincinnati but, after the chapel was
rebuilt, his wish to be buried at Notre Dame was granted. His body was exhumed and he is now
buried in the log chapel.
After six months of negotiations, Fr.
Badin’s bible was purchased for a
“significant sum” from the Sisters of
Loretto of Nerinx, Kentucky.
A
delegation
of
sisters
formally
presented the bible at a Mass in the
log chapel on July 14. It has been on
display during the fall semester in the
Rare Books and Special Collections
Room on the main floor of the
Hesburgh Library.
Save $500 on Football Fantasy Camp
Notre Dame Fantasy Camp will take place June 1-5, 2015. Campers will receive all new
Under Armour gear, play on the new artificial grass, and play the first ever Fantasy Camp
night game in Notre Dame Stadium. The price is $4995 but there is a $500 early bird
discount until January 1.
2014 Marks the 170th Anniversary of the Founding of Saint Mary’s College
By Kathleen Sabol, SMC’08
On May 30, 1843, four Sisters of the Congregation of Holy Cross arrived in northern Indiana to
assist the Holy Cross priests who had established Notre Dame two years prior. In 1844, the
sisters answered the needs of the community by opening a school, Saint Mary’s Academy, to
educate orphaned girls and minister to the poor and sick located in Bertrand, Michigan, an area
north of South Bend.
In 1908, the Academy was moved to South Bend and renamed Saint Mary’s College. Mother
Pauline O’Neill became the first president of the College. Known as “the builder for God,”
Mother Pauline developed the essence of today’s Saint Mary’s by creating a curriculum to
provide a holistic education of the mind, spirit, and heart. Under her direction, Le Mans Hall,
one of the most iconic buildings on campus was constructed. Named after the town in France
where Blessed Father Basil Moreau started the Congregation of Holy Cross, Le Mans Hall now
operates as an administrative building, dormitory, and holds the Holy Spirit Chapel.
LeMans Hall was built in 1926 and is situated at the center of
campus.
Throughout its 170 years, Saint
Mary’s College has truly grown
into
a
global
academic
institution
dedicated
to
developing and educating
women leaders. Emphasizing
the core values of learning,
community, faith/spirituality,
and justice, Saint Mary’s
College offers 30 majors, study
abroad programs in 18
countries, and Division III
athletic teams.
Sister Madeleva Wolff, one of the College’s most loved Presidents and alumna, set the tone for
a Saint Mary’s education with these poignant words: “We promise you discovery: the
discovery of yourself, the discovery of the universe, and your place in it.”
Each academic year, Saint Mary’s College educates approximately 2,000 students who come
from 18 countries to live and learn on the 100-acre campus. Alumnae include members of
Congress, New York Times bestsellers, judges, nuns, Peace Corps volunteers and mothers.
For more information, visit www.saintmarys.edu.