Fraternal Activities Archives
2015 Photo Contest Winners
Submitted by: Kelly M. Shedlock, Fraternal & Youth Director
Wow!!! I received 100 entries for the very 1st FCSLA Photo Contest. I was so excited to see so many!
This was by far the most popular of all the previous contests I have held! Thank you for your participation. All the photos were amazing! It made the judging very, very difficult. There were so many entries for the
Landscape / Scenic / Nature category that I had to do sub‐categories to help the judges narrow down their
choices.
The judges did not know who sent in each picture. They only information they had were the
photos themselves and the Title and where the photo was taken.
Congratulations to all those who won the top four prizes in each category. As far as I am concerned everyone who submitted a photo is a winner. I look forward to seeing all the entries in the 2016 Photo Contest.
Be sure to check out the full list of winners and their winning photos.
Art Contest Winners
FCSLA has some very talented and creative youth members! They made the judging very hard!
This year's theme was "Favorite Thing I did on my Summer Vacation." Our youngest member to submit a drawing was 16-months-old, and the oldest was 15! Congratulations to all of you (and your parents) for taking the time to share your talents with the entire FCSLA Family!
I am very excited to be able to share your drawings not only in our Fraternally Yours Magazine, but also on our website. The artists' drawing were laminated and sent back to them with a certificate and prize. I so enjoyed all of the artwork and we can say we saw their early drawings before they were famous.
I hope you will participate again next year!
See the winning drawings:
FCSLA's Washington DC March for Life Bus trip cancelled
Submitted by: Kelly M. Shedlock, Fraternal & Youth Director
Months of preparation go into planning our annual March for Life bus trip to Washington, DC. For the second time in in the past few years, Mother Nature brought our trip to a screeching halt.
I was becoming sort of an hourly expert on what was going on with Winter Storm Jonas. I was checking the storms' progress and pattern starting Wednesday morning through the time I went to bed that evening. The forecasts started out with the DC area supposed to get 4-8"starting around 8pm Friday night, then 5-8", then 8-10", etc.
The first thing I did was put the Weather Channel on Thursday morning while I got ready for work. Then I asked God to provide me with the information I needed to make the right decision. It was not looking good. They were now predicting up to 30", with it starting around noon on Friday. There was no way I could send 2 buses down to DC. I was leaning toward cancelling. We would get down there fine, but coming home I was very worried about the buses getting stranded on the PA Turnpike.
I put a call into my cousin, Chris (who lives in Alexandria, VA), to get a firsthand report. I had called my captains and co-captains of our buses to get their feedback. Our President Cynthia Maleski also had emails and calls out to Fr. Gerard Gonda, Benedictine High School, Msgr. Polando, our National Chaplain, and Carolyn Bazik, our Editor of Fraternally Yours. I started getting calls from our sources right away and from the groups that were going on our buses. The verdict was that for the safety of everyone we should cancel. I shared all the feedback with President Maleski, and at 10AM Thursday morning I started emailing and calling to let everyone know we were indeed canceling.
I went to Plan B. Since we couldn't go, what if we had a prayer service for the unborn? I asked Fr. Gonda, and he said he would be happy to put together a prayer service and bring a bus of the young gentlemen who were supposed to go on the trip with us. It was a beautiful prayer service. As you can see from the photos we had a really nice size group attend.
It was a really good thing we cancelled. As most of you had probably seen on TV, there were several buses of students that were stranded on the PA Turnpike coming home from The March for up to 20 hours.
Mother Nature threw a road block at us. And some people ask why don't they change the date of The March? Why do they have it on January 22nd? The answer: It is the date that the decision came down from the Supreme Court on Roe vs Wade: January 22, 1973 (to legalize abortion). The March for Life has been held every year since regardless of the weather.
So, in September 2016, I will start the planning of the 2017 trip! Maybe Mother Nature will be nicer next year.
4th Annual United Slovak Bowling Tournament
View photos and see results of the Annual United Slovak Bowling Tournament in 2013.
See our most recent Fraternal Activities.
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