PHYSICAL EDUCATION
The physical education department has just finished the second segment of the physical fitness testing. Students are tested three times a year, and these tests serve as the basis of the semester and final exams. Students are graded either to a preset scale, or they are graded upon individual improvement.
The students are ranked according to scores achieved on the tests. The students finishing in the top ten during the first testing are as follows:

Congratulations to the above students and to the many students who improved their individual scores dramatically from the first to the second testing. CHRIS KNAPP set a new school record for the situps, doing 45 in 30 seconds.
The lifetime activities class is participating in bowling and badminton. Twice a week we go to the bowling alley. We also visited the driving range for our golf unit this fall and had a tennis tournament at the Southgate Anderson courts.
The team sports classes have had tournaments in football, soccer, basketball, and volleyball. The weight training class is getting stronger throught their daily workouts

BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Congratulations to those students who participated in our Type-A-Thon this year. Students in the three Keyboarding I classes raised $538.18 to help fight the No. 1 disease killer of children-Leukemia. Pledges were for perfect lines typed in 15 minutes. The Leukemia Society of America has been fighting leukemia by raising funds for research, patient aid, public and professional education, and community service. Three of its individual researchers are located at the University of Michigan. Students collecting the most pledges were:
Lauren Quaine $50 Emily Zammit 50
Chris Dujovski 40 Kris Baker 27
Andrea Winnett 26
We are very proud of all our students who cared enough to help others. Again, CONGRATULATIONS, STUDENTS!

CAMPUS MINISTRY
GR MOM’S RETREAT is fast approaching! It will be held March 23–24 at Weber Center in Adrian. The theme is Women’s Spirituality. We have had a great response and have only a few openings left. If you are interested in attending but haven’t contacted us, do so soon. Contact Kathy LaPointe at 734 676–3681 or klapoint@ford.com. If you have an email address, we’d be grateful to have that for ease of communications.

Hunger Week
Seven goats, 3 hives of bees, 8 flocks of chicks, and 2 trios of rabbits – unique gifts indeed!! Somewhere in our world 20 families will have a little better life because of GR students and staff! During Hunger Awareness Week in early November, as students were made aware of the tragic extent of hunger throughout the world, they were given some unique ways of reaching out to help decrease hunger. Students were invited to attend a soup meal and were given several options for donations. Some chose to make an individual donation to either a soup kitchen in Detroit or a children’s breakfast program in the Dominican Republic. The soup kitchens, Manna Meals and All Saints, are ones where our students have met and served those who hunger right in here in Detroit. The breakfast program is one where GR students met and interacted with the children of impoverished sugar cane cutters in the batayes of eastern Dominican Republic.
Others Richard students, along with their parents or classmates, chose to make a more lasting gift – that of sponsoring a Salvadoran junior-high child’s education for a semester or a year. They will receive a photo and letter from their sponsored child who lives in our school’s “sister village” of Colonia de Monsenior Romero in the mountains of northeastern El Salvador. In that village, which is assisted through the proceeds of our GR CARE group’s bake sales, many children do not have the means to attend a junior or senior high school. The two-room school in their village has classes for grades 1 thru 6 only. Funds for older youth to travel to another village, to obtain shoes and uniforms (required by public schools) and for school fees are very difficult to come by in the mountains where the parents have no real source of income. Land that could be farmed is owned by the wealthy and there is no industry in the area. Through the gift of education, the youth are given a mean of bettering their future.
GR students, families, and staff who chose to donate animals also gave a gift that will be long lasting and one with the potential to transform a family’s life. The animals were given through the Heifer Project International, which trains the families in caring for the animals and requires each recipient to pass on to another family an offspring of their animal. Goats can supply a family with several quarts of nutritious milk a day. Extra milk can be sold or used to make cheese, butter or yogurt. Rabbits multiply rapidly, increase a family’s protein intake and provide fertilizer for gardens. A good hen can lay up to 200 eggs a year – plenty to eat, share or sell. Bees help struggling families earn income through the sale of honey, beeswax and pollen. When students heard of the value of these animal gifts, the enthusiasm was tangible! We here at GR are very blessed, and it is great that we can share the gifts that we have been given.