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Mr. Couillard's Comments
on Queen of May!
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The 11th annual Queen of May Benefit is scheduled for this Friday, September 11th and the proceeds from it go to Immaculate Conception School. The money from the Queen of May has brought many great changes to the school. For me, the biggest change has been the playground that was installed in the summer of 2014.
Before I go on I would like to give a little history of the ICS playground. My name is Dan Couillard and I have been the physical education teacher at ICS since the fall of 1988 or 32 years for those that don’t want to do the math. One of my jobs besides teaching Physical Education (Gym class) was to be the playground supervisor. When the students went out to play on the playground before or after lunch there was no playground equipment to play on. Footballs, kickballs and jump ropes were the main items that the students played with. Around 2005 the school added three metal basketball hoops for students to shoot at.
I once asked Father Walter Sochacki the parish pastor at the time about adding a U.S. map to the playground and he told me that it was not a playground but a parking lot for the parishioners going to church on Saturday and Sundays. Father Sochacki was right the parking lot is not a playground. A flat piece of tar is not a great place to play and definitely hard on the knees and hands if you fall.
I was always hopeful that someday a real playground could be added to the parking lot for kids to play on. That is where the Queen of May Benefit comes into the story. In 2010 the Queen of Mary Dinner and Auction was started to help raise funds for the school and build community in a fun event. The money raised at the auction has gone to many different areas in the school such as tuition assistance, technology, and infrastructure to name a few. In 2014 the Queen of May Benefit decided to put that year’s funds to go towards a real playground, with slides, tunnels and all sorts of climbing apparatus. That year they raised $40,000 dollars to put towards the playground. The rest of the money that was needed to pay for the playground was raised privately without using any funds from the parish. That summer of 2014 the playground was built by a crack crew of volunteers.
The playground today is used every day by the school children and has created a safe and extremely fun place to play. It has made my job as the playground supervisor much easier. The school nurse is also very happy about the playground with less skinned knees to treat. Without the Queen of May, ICS would still only have a parking lot.
This year’s Queen of Mary Auction and Benefit, due to the pandemic, has been moved to Friday, September 11th and has been turned into a virtual event. To participate in this year's event click the link below:
Thank you for reading!Mr. Dan Couillard