With students coming back this week, we are super excited to start the spring semester!

For those of you that may not know, this year would have been Fr. Ernest Hardesty’s 30thanniversary with St. Leo’s. In honor of this major milestone, we want to celebrate this year in a special way. We have come up with some unique and fun experiences to share with you all while incorporating many priests and people who have helped us continue what he had a large part of growing in our ministry.

The theme for this year in memory of Fr. Ernie is to put the FUN back in FUNdraising! The plan is to have a month to fundraise for an activity that will take place in the following month. These funds will go towards our college campus ministry, which is one awesome cause! Since it is January…it’s time to start! Starting today, we will raise funds for our first activity for the next month (30 days). Fr. Omar Galvan of St. Augustine in Dardanelle and St. Andrew in Danville will help us kick off the fun! Fr. Omar was one of our priests for the 2023-2024 school year. The first FUNdraising event is going to be a spicy chicken eating contest. Think Hot Seat, but with priests! : ) We will have two teams to choose from to compete in the spicy eating contest. Fr. Shekhar and Fr. Omar will both have a team of students that will participate. If you want to see Fr. Shekhar’s reactions while eating that extra spicy chicken, then cast your vote for his team. Maybe you want to save Fr. Shekhar from having to do it, so be sure to vote for Fr. Omar’s team. Or maybe you really want to see a particular student compete. Your donations will cast your vote. The team with the highest amount donated will compete in the hot chicken challenge. This is your chance to decide who will participate and who will watch, so cast your vote today! Again, the funds are going to help our ministry, so please be generous!

To cast your vote, go to https://holyheat.stleosatu.org/

Or bring your vote and donation to St. Leo’s. You can always mail your vote in as well (PO Box 9033, Russellville, AR 72811), but be sure to do it early, so we receive it before the cutoff time. (We have a countdown located on the website!