Photo Caption: Fourth-graders Noah Cokel, Megan Carey, Genevieve Stedwill and Mary Dyke get the cheering started for their new mascot, St. Jude Fire.

By: By Jennifer Willems

If you’re seeking the fire of the Holy Spirit, look to the students at St. Jude’s School in Peoria. They’d be happy to share it with you and their new mascot makes that perfectly clear.

At a pep rally on Feb. 21, the children cheered for their patron, their school and their faith as St. Jude Fire was unveiled. Each of the 110 students wore a gray t-shirt with the new mascot displayed in maroon across the front and they made the flames dance as they shouted back and forth “Let’s get fired up! We are fired up!”

“Remember that St. Jude Fire is not a fire of destruction. It doesn’t destroy anything,” said Winnie Pratt, principal, who also wore a t-shirt with the new mascot on the front. “St. Jude Fire is a fire of love.”

Jesus came to set the world on fire with love and they must have that love in their own hearts before they can help it spread like wildfire to the school community, their families, and the world, she said.

“That’s what we’re all about,” Pratt told the children, who filled the gathering space of the church. “So St. Jude Fire is a really cool mascot that means so much.”

“When we think of St. Jude we notice the fire of the Holy Spirit that came down upon him,” said Father Patrick Henehan, pastor. “It’s the fire of the Holy Spirit that can come down upon us so that we can be what God wants us to be — saints, his holy ones, spreading his love, spreading his wisdom, bringing his truth into the world in which we live.”

While prayers are generally offered in a pretty quiet way, after his invocation he encouraged them to respond with a vigorous “Pray for us!” after he shouted, “St. Jude!”

Before the students went back to class they showed their appreciation for graphic artist Josh Whitmore, who designed the new mascot. He received a plaque from Father Henehan and a round of applause.

BUILDING IDENTITY
Milestones are coming fast for St. Jude’s School, which opened its doors in August 2009 with 49 students in pre-school through first grade. Pratt said that next fall they expect to enroll about 140 students and add fifth grade.

The goal is to have a new school building by the time those fifth-graders become sixth-graders.

Parish leaders have been working with the City of Peoria’s zoning commission and with the Diocese of Peoria’s Art and Architecture Committee and Finance Committee and hope to be able to break ground in June. Construction is expected to take about 13 months, Father Henehan said.

“Building God’s Kingdom,” a capital campaign launched last year, has raised about $3.6 million for the expansion. The estimated cost is about $4 million.

Father Henehan said the first phase of the project includes eight classrooms, a gym and administrative offices, as well as a cafeteria and kitchen. The pre-school and kindergarten would remain in the current educational wing of the parish facility.

The second phase would allow them to enhance the school by adding a library and include a social hall for the parish, Father Henehan explained.

“What we want to be able to do is provide excellent Catholic education, kindergarten through eighth grade,” he said, as well as sports, art, music and “all the things that we want to have in an excellent way.”

While a mascot may seem like a small thing compared to a $4 million expansion project, Father Henehan said it speaks to why the school exists in the first place.

“We’re forming our identity and I think first and foremost we want our identity to be ardently Catholic,” he said. “This just kind of says even more who we are.”