Starting a Shalom Club

How I Began a Shalom Club in our Elementary School

by Sister Carol Jean Dust, SSND

To continue in the mission of Jesus we are called to the spirit of right relationships with God/ourselves/others/creation, a spirit of harmony, peace, shalom.

Suggestions for introducing a Shalom Club.

• I - an introduction of the club for teachers’ information.
• II - what I handed out to the students to take home to parents.
• III - invitational flyer sent home for parent permission.
• IV - welcome message along with the particulars about the meeting times/dates. We actually changed the time later to begin the meeting at 11:30 and to eat together to give us more time. This actually ended up being more of a unifying factor for the club.
• V - a page that becomes a log for them at each meeting to state how they personally plan to work for peace during the next two weeks. We take time at each meeting to fill it out and then to share a few comments about how the last commitment went for them.
• VI - a page passed around at the first meeting for each to write her/his reason for joining the club. This was then shared with the teachers.
• VII - an e-mail message I received from Sister Cathy Arata after telling her we were beginning the club. The kids loved hearing from her and I put a copy of this in each one’s folder to receive the first day.
• VIII - a poem/prayer I found and felt had great potential for their level of understanding which we used at the first meeting.
• IX - the prayer with the Shalom song that was used at the Orientation Day at the Motherhouse. It became our theme song used at the end of every meeting while standing in a circle. This event was an opportunity to meet students from other Shalom Clubs in the area. It also introduced the students to Sister Ann Scholz, SSND, the representative of SSND at the United Nations.
• X - is the end-of-the-year evaluation we did, reviewing the purpose for the Club and giving some websites the students could use over the summer.
• XI & XII- the report I gave to Sister Gen Cassani, SSND, Shalom representative in St. Louis, to be passed on to Sister Cathy Arata, SSND, international coordinator of Shalom and Sister Ann Scholz, SSND.