St. Dominic School Focuses on Reaching Students at Deeper Levels

As published in the Southington Citizen, March 16, 2012

"Children are a most precious gift, carrying a message of hope and the continuation of life." These are headline words of "Rainbows," a program added by St. Dominic School which is under the direction of Stacy Marchionni, who has been the school’s Student Counselor since August 2011.

The Rainbows program is based in Chicago where it was founded 29 years ago when it piloted its curriculum in local private schools. Since then, Rainbows states that they have become the nation’s largest not-for-profit organization dedicated solely to helping families cope with loss, and that they have served nearly 2 million youth throughout the U.S. and 17 countries.

A conversation with Principal, Patti Tiezzi and Stacy Marchionni, brought out the fact that when children experience the loss of a parent. grandparent or other close member of the nuclear family, either through death, divorce, disabling illness, etc., they are left with the absence of one of their primary sources of love, trust, even discipline, and orientation. Such a loss can leave a child without an anchor to life itself. It can be that serious. Moreover, it’s difficult for children to put their pain into words. When they attempt to articulate their feelings kids may find parents too burdened by their own grief to effectively help them cope with their feelings. Sometimes children outwardly appearing to be coping are struggling inside with conflicting emotions. The goal of Rainbows is to get out these feelings as one step in learning that their feelings matter and that notwithstanding a loss, they still belong to that family so that they may feel physically and emotionally safe.

The children at St. Dominic are currently placed in two age-appropriate support groups of no more than five. Marchionni reports visible progress in getting the children to express themselves and to develop trust in new relationships as they reach out to each other in a safe place to talk about what is going on. The student counselor’s responsibilities include a range of additional programs directed at the development of individual social and empathy skills .

There’s now in place, a Peer Mediator group of four 5th graders who are trained and under the supervision of the counselor in meeting with students in trying to help them resolve conflicts. Tiezzi pointed out that kids need to learn that the violence they see and experience on TV and in media games is not reality and that such behavior is never appropriate in resolving disagreements in a supportive environment. The school is also preparing 4th graders to assume the responsibility of 5th graders who will be graduating in June.

There’s also a Second Step program that addresses violence, resolution of conflicts through empathetic use of social skills and being a good listener, for example. Children are the center of the universe in their homes but in school they need to grow into healthy members and good citizens in the world they are meeting outside of the home culture.

Tiezzi commented that the school faculty and staff are on board with the counselor and Rainbows and social skills teaching programs. Through their own training and experience they relate to the benefits these curricula provide the students, the school and themselves as teachers.

While the importance of these programs should be self-evident, the strength of them is in the support of principal, faculty, the School Board and parents with the full endorsement of the pastor of St. Dominic. Fr. Ron May, and the fact that Rainbows provides curricula, materials, training, site support, follow up, continuing education and research and evaluation of the entire process.

It takes a town like Southington ...

This article was originally published in the Southington Citizen.

$12,285 Raised in One Hour

The people of Southington really do care. They prove their generosity time and time again. This time they broke all records.

Last week, an opportunity was presented to the people of Southington in the form of a call for help for Southington Community Services. For every dollar placed in the Salvation Army red bucket in front of the Walmart store on Queen Street, Walmart would match the donations, dollar for dollar. The campaign would run just one hour from noon to 1:00 pm on December 12, 2011 with Senator Joe Markley and state Rep. Rob Sampson personally ringing the bells.

Walmart was offering the same opportunity to their customers throughout the state. In Southington’s case, the entire collection would go to Southington Community Services to help make up the agency’s total donations short-fall in meeting the growing needs of our local population who are not able to make ends meet, essentially because of lingering poor economic conditions.

Director of Southington Community Services, Janet Mellon, and Kathy (Calvanese) Reinhard, who also serves the agency, reported Tuesday that the community responded resoundingly to the ringing of the bells. In addition, the positive response was attributed to so many getting the word out such, for example, at weekend worship services and the communications network of email, a new local blog, (The Quest for Common Ground), and Facebook.

Mellon had optimistically hoped to raise $10,000 in Southington Salvation Army donations in order to bring in $20,000 including the matching funds of Walmart of Southington. But, the people of Southington raised the stakes and contributed a total of $12,285 … in just one hour! Thanks to Walmart, who matched those funds, the total presented to Southington Community Services was $24,570!

By Wednesday morning, the huge response was the biggest piece of news throughout the Walmart stores and at the state legislature where the program had been set up. “Everyone was in shock!” Janet Mellon said. “The average collection around the state was $30 to $100 collected in that one hour. It’s easy to see why the donations of $12,285 in Southington were incredible. It’s the biggest fund raiser we have ever had … and still unbelievable that it was done in one hour”, Mellon added.

Beth Egliskis, Community Relations Coordinator of Walmart, said: “The first ones who came to the bell ringing were members of the Southington Fire Department who gave us a large envelope stuffed with money. Then the town manager and many other dignitaries came in to make their donations and the flow didn’t stop during the whole hour. When we took the collection to my office we were amazed, ecstatic and extremely proud that we had collaborated with Senators Rob Sampson, Joe Markley, Michael Rell and Brian Sundie of the Republican Party who put this idea together with Walmart. Putting the results into perspective, the average one hour collections were between $30 and $100 around the state. The second highest so far, after Southington, raised $402, according to Walmart.”

Mellon and Reinhard were elated. “This is astonishing news. We have added $24, 570 to the coffers this year to help the needy in our community. God has blessed this community and with the most generous people on earth! Merry Christmas to all.”, Reinhard said.

Southington Community Services helps those in need in many ways, including food distributed by them through the Southington Food Pantry, which Bread for Life also helps support in a big way. The service agency also provides fuel and rent assistance, clothing and other urgent needs of the poor. "These are God’s people," said Eldon Hafford, executive director of Bread for Life.