Thank you, Thank you!

Oct 14

Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

October 16, 2022

I cannot say thank you enough! Last weekend was great! The Spaghetti Dinner, Car Raffle, and the 12K & 18-Mile Run were all great! It was a busy weekend but it was a lot of fun! Believe it or not, those 18 miles have been run and spaghetti has been eaten for 50 years! That’s a lot of pasta and a heck of a lot of miles!!

A great thank you goes out to Lorri and Joe D’Orsi for their fantastic spaghetti and meatball and sausage dinner. They add a little twist and offered sausages this year. What a great idea!! I makes for a much better gravy [sauce, to some.] It really was an incredible meal. We sold out so next year I would suggest you get your tickets early. Thank you to Olive Garden who provided the salad and their famous dressing! Thanks to JoAnne Reeder who provided us with wonderful dinner music and thanks to everyone who made a dessert so we could end our meal on a sweet note, even if you didn’t win a car. A great thank you also needs to go out to the more than 40 volunteers who helped make the evening run so smoothly. Thank you! Thank you!

Of course, the end of the evening was the Car Raffle drawing. Thank you to Marie Maslanka for coordinating the raffle and her band of faithful servants, Rosemarie Kunz, Peggy Talbot, Arlene Padova, Marlene Siegle, Janice Hritz, and Ann Rodier. These women are truly amazing. If they were not patient before, they certainly learned it. They wrote the information on all the tickets sold online [845 x 5 tickets] and those sold by mail [1059 x 5 tickets] and folder all 17,500 tickets [3500 x 5.] God bless them! Thank you, Arian Selmani and Keel Agency, for working with us to put the Car Raffle online. Your work with us continues to bring us into this new world of technology. Thank you! The lucky winners of our 2022 Car Raffle are:

Hyundai Venue Joan Kretz, Morris Plains NJ

Honda Civic Greg Cavallo, Ship Bottom NJ

Ford Bronco David Marzo, LaGrange Pk IL

Ford Bronco Mary Ann Fallows, Moorestown NJ

Nissan Frontier Krista Kempski, Randolph NJ

Thank you all for your support. If you purchased a car raffle book or joined us for pasta on Saturday, Thank you!

Then at 10:00 AM Sunday morning the runners were off for the new 12K race or the 18 Mile Run! I can’t imagine ever thinking I could do either! God bless those runners. Fr. Scott was there to bless them before the race started and Frs. Kevin, Scott, Andrew and I greeting them at the finish line.

Thank you to the over 300 volunteers who helped make that happen! Thank you to everyone who created the meal bags or handed out water along the route or anything else in between that helped our runners. Once again, I was very impressed with the 45 + high school students who are part of the Interact Club from Southern Regional High School. Their advisor, Cheryl Conley, along with Don Myers, coordinated their efforts to offer assistance to all of the runners as they finished the race. What a great group of young adults! Thank you!

Thanks to Steve La Marco, the Director of Recreation and the Aquatics Center, and to your team for coordinating the 12K & 18-Mile Run. Thanks to Grace Tsokonas and all the center staff for the extra effort that is needed for this hallmark event for St. Francis Center.

Once again the Long Beach Township Beach Patrol worked overtime and the Beach Haven, Surf City, and Barnegat Light First Aid Squads were there … just in case. And the all of the police departments on Long Beach Island did a great job to bring order to the boulevard and kept our runners safe. Thank you to the Beach Haven Police Department, Long Beach Township Police, Ship Bottom Police Department, Surf City Police Department, and Harvey Cedars Police Department.

Finally, thank you to the runners for participating in the 2022 12K & 18-Mile Run. Your dedication, commitment, and determination is inspiring to all. Each and everyone one of you are great examples to us that if we put our mind to it, we can do a lot more than we think we can.

May God continue to bless all of us with the courage and grace to keep running the good race, fighting the good fight, so we too may know the victory.