3/19/21 - Friday Forget-Me-Nots by Jim Silcott

Photo Caption: A glorious day in the Ga Ga Pit!

Dear Our Lady of Peace Family:

Dear Our Lady of Peace Family,

The Our Lady of Peace Pizza Sale has been going on for an incredible 43 years. Hundreds of thousands of pizzas have been assembled in our school cafeteria, sold by our students and parents and consumed by people all over Central Ohio. It is one of the longest continuous fundraising traditions around.

When the pandemic hit last March many unbroken annual events were cancelled: March Madness, the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, parish festivals and even Red, White and Boom were curtailed in homage to the little virus that has plagued us. 

Ann Schirack and Cari Potts, the chairwomen of the Our Lady of Peace Pizza Committee, a subsidiary of our mighty Home and School Association were in a quandry. How do we make a pizza sale without the ability to make pizzas?

Undaunted by not unbowed the ladies put together a way to make money for our wonderful school, support local community businesses and allow Central Ohio to continue to consume pizzas in great quantities with the selling our pizza coupons. 

As always, this community responded and you sold 2407.6 items in our sale this year. In a year that saw little ole Our Lady of Peace defy the norm and hold classes five days a week through now 125 school days we kept our unbroken record of pizza selling for another season. What a testimony to our community and all of you.

Another sign that the future is great at Our Lady of Peace School? Our winning class this year was our youngest class, Kindergarten, selling 485.2 items and taking home the trophy. Grade 2 came in second place with 367 with first grade on their heels at 336.

The top selling families were: 

Combs Family with 100 items Ashmus and Barcus Families with 57 items

Vogel Family with 84.8 items Sicilian Family with 56.8 items

Potts Family with 83.4 items Thomas Family with 55 items

Nelson Family with 82.2 items Retzke and Teschler Families with 45 items

Marmion Family with 60 items Brehm Family with 41 items

Our Lady of Peace is a school that works and a school that works together to benefit our children. Even though the highlight of our annual pizza sale, the day long assembly of pizzas where dozens of parents take time from their busy lives to come down to the cafeteria and make Guido specials was not able to take place, parents have made their presence and their support known by all that you have done this year for your children, our teachers and your school.

My very special thanks go to Ann and Cari and their committee: Denise Maynard, Simon Maynard, Jeff Nelson, Katie Leonard, Casey Leonard, Kari Ripperger, Cena Pedro, Amanda Barcus, Mollie Hannon, Kathryn Maynard, Sheila Teynor, Jackie Vogel, Stephanie Belding, Beth Wiley, Valerie Rion and Tim Parker along with our hard working Home and School Association and every parent here who has helped make this pizza sale and this school year possible. As your principal please know that on behalf of the faculty, staff and students we are blessed to have you! 

Enjoy those pizzas!

Jim Silcott