Signs inside the gymnasium at St. Rose of Lima Catholic School in Roseville told everyone what would happen next:
“It’s slime time.”
Energy increased as students, teachers and staff starting filing in shortly after 1 p.m. March 21. With the entire student body sitting on the gym floor, the two guests of honor made a grand entrance: Sean Slaikeu, principal, and Father Marc Paveglio, pastor of St. Rose parish.
In January, both had agreed to be “slimed” if the students met their goal of $13,000 in the Catholic Schools Raffle by Catholic United Financial. When it was met by the Feb. 24 deadline with $13,450, the slime fest was on. Slaikeu and Father Paveglio sat on chairs inside two plastic swimming pools, with ladders next to each of them for students to climb and drop their green payloads from above. The men wore goggles to protect their eyes. Father Paveglio chose to keep his collar on, which turned green in the process.
At the time he agreed to be slimed, Slaikeu wasn’t worried. He figured he might get just a few cupfuls poured on him. No big deal.
He was wrong.
“When they told me I needed to buy five-gallon buckets at Menard’s for slime making, I knew I was in trouble,” Slaikeu said.
His administrative assistant, Stefanie Wetzel, teamed up with Carrie Sandquist, the school’s financial services coordinator, to make the slime. They ended up filling nearly two five-gallon buckets with the green goo.
Top raffle sellers from each grade were invited to pour the slime on each of the two men, whose individual names were drawn before each dousing. The final act featured the top seller, eighth-grader Shane Mullen, who was given the remaining two gallons of slime in a bucket to pour on both men.
“It was pretty fun,” said Mullen, who sold 600 raffle tickets for $3,000, with his and all the students’ entire amount going to the school. “I’ve never really touched slime before. … It was a pretty good reward for selling the most tickets.”
The priest and principal wiped off the slime afterward, but couldn’t remove everything.
“I got the majority of it (slime) off, but it started to dry,” Slaikeu said the day afterward. “And, I was like, ‘Well, I’m just gonna go home.’ So, I drove home, but I have about a 45-minute commute. And, by the time I got home, it was pretty crusted on. Today, I still have a few speckles of green slime on me that just seemed to not want to come off, but for the most part, I don’t look like the Grinch today.”
As for next year, Slaikeu said some of the items used for the sliming have been packed up and put into storage. So, if the students reach their goal again next year, slime fest will return.
“If it takes me getting slimed to motivate students to go out and sell more raffle tickets, that’s something I’m open to doing,” he said. “It was nerve wracking to get the first bucket dumped on you, but looking out there and seeing the kids smiling and laughing and the teachers’ looks was just fun. It was just a good way to build community.”