Brunswick Trust Newsletter, Fall 2023

The Brunswick Trust N E W S L E T T E R

Brunswick Trust Report – Fall 2023

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ur youngest Bruins, the boys in our Pre School building, have six Pillars of Character to guide them.

Caring is one of those pillars and stands as a reminder to all in our Brunswick community of the importance of caring for ourselves, for others, and for the world that surrounds us. Brunswick boys have been actively engaged in Trust discussions, lessons, activities, and projects this fall that exercise this critical character strength and develop our abilities to cooperate, to collaborate, and, most of all, to care.

Character & Leadership

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lite listening and speaking skills were the topic of a fun and spirited Words Matter assembly at the Lower School.

Olympic Listeners featured students divided into three roles — Viewer, Communicator, and Creator. They were tasked with recreating an abstract drawing using only their words and listening skills. The resulting, six-minute rounds of play provided much fodder for discussion and included time to “debrief” and discuss what went right.

Every student was given a chance in every role.

“The assembly was really fun,” said Kate Duennebier, Brunswick Trust coordinator. “Everyone got a turn on each of the roles. It was impossible to be perfect and funny.”

The assembly was inspired by Upper School English teacher Taryn Petrelli, who brainstormed with Lower School Head Katie Signer over the summer to find ways to incorporate more public speaking opportunities for boys in first through fourth grade.

“It was almost like a little game of telephone,” Petrelli said. “We had three teachers model the activity.”

“It’s a great book to build a positive and supportive community — a great focus for adults and for our community at large,” said Signer. “Lots of great messages in there that we are putting into practice.”

SMART goal-setting has once again been the focus at the Middle School this fall as boys rounded the corner of the first marking period with a mid-semester reflection exercise designed to dovetail with midpoint comments students received from teachers.

Further inspiration came from Be the Sun, Not the Salt by Dr. Harry Cohen, which faculty read over the summer.

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CHARACTER

D I V E R S I T Y, E Q U I T Y,

H E A LT H

SERVICE &

& LEADERSHIP

INCLUSION &

& WELLNESS

S U S TA I N A B I LI T Y

BELONGING

The Brunswick Trust Character & Leadership continued from page 1

Boys were asked to review teacher comments and place a plus sign next to identified strengths and a star next to challenges.

Students reviewed the Character Continuum with the objective of seeing how their academic strengths might overlap with character strengths.

Based on what they learned, boys were then asked to set SMART goals for the remainder of the semester. SMART is an acronym for Specific, Measured, Achievable, Relevant, and Timed. SMART goals are much more than just an intention to “do better” in math. For example, a SMART Goal might be to set up a 15-minute Wednesday morning meeting with a math teacher to work on practice problems.

Both Middle and Upper School families participated in this summer’s Brunswick Trust community read, Shoe Dog, a memoir about the creation of Nike written by its founder, Phil Knight.

“The Summer Read’s primary goal is to create a community experience in the name of real deliberation about character and leadership,” said Duennebier. “For Shoe Dog to have a Young Readers’ Edition allowed us to extend that shared conversation into our Middle School grades, and that expansion — maybe even more than the huge swoosh on the cover — seemed to make it a welcome choice for this summer.”

“Phil Knight, author and subject of the memoir, proves to be far from the emblem or model of perfect character or even of effective management, despite his success,” she said. “For our faculty, boys, and families to be able to be both entertained by and challenged by his story made Shoe Dog a productive and illuminating read.”

A class of third graders staged what can only be termed a Gentleman’s Assembly, using the Definition of a Gentleman by Robert L. Cosby and a choral reading of Courage, Honor, Truth to reinforce the Lower School theme Words Matter.

Third graders in Kathy Myer’s class recited the definition— an extra-special performance because Ms. Myer received the distinctive words directly from Mr. Cosby when she was starting her Brunswick career in the early 2000s.

Here is Mr. Cosby’s definition: A gentleman is a man who is clean inside and outside, who neither looks up to the rich nor down on the poor, who can lose without squealing, who can win without bragging, who is considerate to women, children, and the elderly, who is too brave to lie, too generous to cheat, and too sensible to loaf, who takes his share of the world’s goods and lets other people take theirs.

Boys donned jackets and ties for the performance, which also featured the choral reading.

“It was short and it was sweet, but it touched people’s hearts,” said Meyer, who is in her 24th year teaching at Brunswick.

Sixth graders have once again begun visiting first grade classrooms to help younger students with their reading. This year, 12 boys were selected for Lower School Readers after sending a letter of interest to Leslie Anderson, director of parent and student counseling services.

The program sees Middle Schoolers head over to the Lower School once every three weeks to lend their help in reading groups, often in the classrooms in which they were students just a few short years ago.

“It’s for students ready to take on leadership,” Anderson said.

“They help with whatever the teacher needs.”

Varsity team captains were invited to the Pre School on the Friday before Homecoming to run an assembly on leadership, teamwork, and sportsmanship.

Porter Hill, the new head of the Pre School, said he invited Director of Athletics Cedric Jones to help put together an assembly to match ideas about sportsmanship and Homecoming with Wick’s youngest. Hill said sportsmanship serves as a perfect message for Pre Schoolers, whose work includes learning to play fair and to follow directions.

“This is their work — how to be part of a team, how to get along,” Hill said. “That’s what they are working on — playing on the playground, being nice to each other. Having a senior telling them that meant so much more than me saying it.”

Tyler Quake ’24, varsity soccer captain, told the boys they were all part of the Brunswick team, and he invited them to attend the Homecoming soccer game that evening — many boys and their fathers turned up.

“It was good to see the younger guys,” said Quake. “I asked them what it means to be a good teammate, and we talked about how it’s important to support our teammates and do the little things on and off the court. I was happy to go.” continued on page 3

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The Brunswick Trust Col. Graves has been visiting the Lower School for Veterans Day for about six years, and he never fails to emphasize the value of reading.

“Marines believe the most powerful weapon is the one between the ears!” he said. “With each year, I do try to integrate examples that highlight the value of reading.”

Lower Schoolers, filling the stairwells and the balcony of the atrium as Col. Graves stood at attention down below, capped the assembly with a special rendition of “Boys of Brunswick.”

The performance was recorded and is not to be missed.

Character & Leadership continued from page 2

Lower School boys gathered in the atrium for a special Veterans Day assembly hosted by Col. Christopher Graves, husband of third grade teacher Kathy Myer and a 30-year veteran of the US Marine Corps.

“He took questions from the boys and answered them so beautifully,” said Katie Signer. “He also spoke about the importance of reading, and being a lifelong learner. He was fantastic.”

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging

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Global Brunswick returned to Maher Avenue, drawing about 40 people to the 16th annual all-campus diversity gathering organized and facilitated by Diversity in Action.

The discussion topic this year was How Do You Measure Intentional Access Through Equity?

Alecia Thomas, director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging, said the evening featured lively discussion on equity as it pertains to education, housing, employment and health care, and more.

“These are the types of topics DIA talks about in its meetings,” Thomas said: “What has history taught us about access? Does giving to one mean taking away from another?”

Just as it is every year, A Global Brunswick was open to the whole Brunswick community and served as a great DEIB opportunity for Middle and Upper School boys as well as faculty, staff, and parents in all divisions.

“It was amazing,” said Thomas. “It gave people something to think about. These types of discussions are ongoing for students as they navigate this world and its DEIB complexities.”

The event, held in the Upper School dining hall, included a potluck dinner. Many families brought delicious, continued on page 4

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The Brunswick Trust Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging continued from page 3

culturally-significant food, including Indian, Mexican, Asian, Italian — and a homemade flan for dessert.

“A Global Brunswick is part of the fabric of this school,” Thomas said. “It’s a sought-after event, and people look forward to attending. The evening went extremely well.”

The Blind and The Elephant, a Middle School Diversity in Action activity this fall, featured a story about six blind men who are brought to examine an elephant that has come to their village.

The first man touches the trunk and says that the elephant is like a thick snake. The second man touches the tusk and says that the elephant is like a spear. The third man touches the ear and says that the elephant is like a fan. And so it goes. Each of the blind men is convinced that he is right and that everyone else is wrong.

Sean Stanley, associate director of DEIB, said he used the story to get students thinking about how other people’s ideas might be governed by a set of beliefs shaped by only partial information, giving them a totally different viewpoint or set of information about the world.

“The main takeaway is each of the six people touch a part of the elephant and determine what the elephant is like on the basis of that,” said Stanley. “They are all partially right, but all entirely wrong, because their own perspective is just this narrow frame of reference, this narrow lens that they have experienced it through.

“It is that arrogance we must fight to ensure we have an open mind to gather a thorough understanding of things, so we can learn and grow together as a society,” Stanley said. “We should encourage people to be open to changing their minds on anything at any given time based on new information.”

A skin color crayon, and the fact that there isn’t one, was the topic of a reading by DEIB Director Alecia Thomas to Pre and Lower School boys.

More Than Peach by Bellen Woodard details the true story of a little girl who was coloring in her classroom when she noticed her classmates request a “skin color” crayon. That got the little girl thinking about how skin can be any number of colors, and the idea of a single skin-color crayon was a mistake. The idea launched a movement in inclusive art supplies and more.

Middle Schoolers learned all about Diwali thanks to a slideshow created and delivered by Upper Schoolers Arjun Kolluri ’27 and Mayur (Armaan) Lakhani ’27.

The two presented the slideshow to Middle School boys as a kick-off to the Hindu festival of lights, which began on November 10.

Kolluri and Lakhani relayed all sorts of information about the five-day festival that is based on the Lunar calendar, and noted Diwali is associated with myriad stories and legends, including Lord Krishna’s victory of Narakasura, the demon of ignorance.

These stories symbolize the triumph of good over evil and the celebration of light over dark.

“We want all our boys to feel welcomed and accepted for who they are here at Brunswick,” Stanley said. “To do that, we feel it’s important to celebrate and educate about as many cultures as possible throughout the school year.

Appreciation of other cultures requires nurturing our sense of tolerance and acceptance. The more we understand and appreciate each other, the more we strengthen the social fabric of our community.

“The lights of Diwali signify a time to destroy all our dark impulses and thoughts — to eradicate dark shadows and evils. They give us the strength and the zeal to carry on with our goodwill for the rest of the year,” he continued. “I feel acknowledging Diwali supports our continued work with our boys around morality, empathy, and positivity. We all can do a better job of being conscious of the way we treat people, gaining understanding of what makes each of us unique, as well as the attitude and energy we bring daily.

“It was great to see the excitement Arjun and Armaan brought to this presentation from our initial conversation to explore the idea to the actual culmination of the presentation,” Stanley said. “I thank Arjun and Armaan for giving their time and sharing about themselves with all of us here at the Middle School.”

Boys got to color their own self-portraits as part of the lesson.

“They loved it,” said Thomas.

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The Brunswick Trust

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging continued from page 4

Matter theme through Kindness Grows by Britta Teckentrup. The book features beautiful illustrations of a sapling growing into a flowering tree thanks to kindness.

CUBs, short for Culturally United Bruins, kicked off the new school year with a gathering of 26 registered families at the Health & Wellness Center located in the Pre School. The meeting saw the group expand on the Lower School Words

The CUBs group worked with art teacher Shannon Pelle to create a tree that will adorn the Lower School lobby, decorating the leaves with kind words of belonging, all created by children and their families.

Health & Wellness

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ower School technology teacher Tim Coupe spoke to third and fourth grade parents on Parent Visiting Day, offering another grim assessment of the tech industry and its impact on growing brains.

“Navigating You Son’s Digital Future” featured recent research on technology use, as well as resources and a “parent to do” list with action items to help families manage tech in the family home.

“Parents are staring at some not insignificant challenges,” Coupe said. “They will have to make decisions about technology in their homes, and when and what should those phones look like.

“Brunswick has been saying for almost 15 years — delay, delay, delay. All of the research supports that.”

Coupe offered an additional technology primer to Pre-K and Kindergarten parents in hopes of “getting their attention early so that they can be aware of the dangers of social media and its potentially harmful impact on their children’s lives.”

“It’s our job to love these children and protect their emotional health, their physical health, and their mental health,” he said, offering this advice to parents: “Keep your kids as far

away from technology as you can. This technology is toxic.

Parents need to be aware of that, and that’s coming from the technology teacher.”

The first-ever Chief Behavioral Health Officer for the Boston Public Health Commission visited Brunswick to speak with parents and Upper School students about resiliency, grit, and a growth mindset.

Kevin M. Simon, M.D., M.P.H, is a Harvard-trained, boardcertified psychiatrist with a special expertise on the mental health needs of children and teens. A widely recognized expert, he has served as an assistant in psychiatry at Boston Children’s Hospital, an instructor at Harvard Medical School, a Commonwealth Fund Fellow in Health Policy at Harvard University, and the medical director of Wayside Youth & Family Support Network, a child welfare and community behavioral health agency.

Simon spoke to parents in an evening forum moderated by Marcie Molloy, M.D., Brunswick’s director of health and wellness. continued on page 6

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The Brunswick Trust An initiative of the Hazeldon Betty Ford Foundation, Prevention Solutions features visits from highly-trained professional specialists who have achieved long-term recovery from alcohol or other drug addictions. The group has been visiting Brunswick and GA for more than 20 years; the specialists bring humor, candor, and personal knowledge to their messages for young people.

“Their unique perspective enhances the credibility of their message and provides students with role models for happy, healthy, drug-free living,” Jon Kaptcianos, dean of Student Services, and Jill Riverain, assistant head of Upper School at GA, wrote in an email to parents.

Health & Wellness continued from page 5

“Resiliency is different from grit,” noted Molloy. “Resiliency is the ability to work through challenges and adversity to maintain well-being. Grit is being able to work through challenges toward a goal.”

Simon, who also spoke to students earlier in the day, offered three strategies parents can use to encourage resilience in their children. The first is to adopt personal grounding activities, like meditation. The second is to help children understand and speak the language of emotions. And the third is to create space and time each week to just listen, to “be a receptacle and allow your children to share.”

“I just want to say, thank you for coming,” Simon told parents.

“A decade ago, I am not sure we could get this many people in a room to talk about mental and behavioral health.”

Simon’s visit, which was preceded by a reception with the Health & Wellness team in the lobby outside Baker Theater, served as the first installment of this years’ ’WICK Center Speaker Series, which brings leading health and wellness thinkers to campus.

IT Executive Function, a new program for ninth graders, kicked off by offering students instruction on the responsible use of technology to help them improve time management and organization. The sessions feature training on some of the basics of technology and of Google Docs as well as tips on strategies and functions that are often overlooked and that when used effectively, have the power to bring calm efficiency to busy days.

Specific topics covered included effective ways to communicate about drugs and drug use, up-to-date facts about current drug use and trends, and how to spot early warning signs of trouble in friends and effective ways to respond.

Parents had the opportunity to hear from Prevention Solutions Specialists in special morning presentations at both schools. While the parent gathering and the visit was primarily directed toward sophomore parents, all interested Upper School parents were invited.

“As we all know, helping our students avoid dangerous pitfalls and make healthy choices is relevant to parents of freshmen, juniors, and seniors as well,” Kaptcianos and Riverain wrote.

“Balancing Sleep and Screens: Cultivating Teen Well-Being Through Healthy Sleep and Media Habits,” a joint webinar from Challenge Success and Common Sense Media, offered parents and caregivers a chance to learn strategies for healthy teen sleep hygiene and media use, especially in light of the crisis in teen mental health nationwide.

Featured panelists were Denise Pope, senior lecturer at Stanford University and co-founder of Challenge Success, and Merve Lapus, vice president of outreach at Common Sense.

The conversation was recorded and can be found below.

“It’s based on the idea that stress, anxiety, and depression are often caused by disorganization,” said Molloy. “Smart phones and computers — they generally start as a toy. We need to educate students on how to use tech responsibly, as a tool.

We need to teach best practices.”

Healthy lifestyles choices were the topic of discussion for sophomores and their parents at both Brunswick and Greenwich Academy this fall thanks to a coordinated, weeklong visit from Prevention Solutions.

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The Brunswick Trust

Health & Wellness continued from page 6

“Friend or Foe? Living with and Learning from Artificial Intelligence,” a Common Sense Media Connected Schools conversation, live streamed on YouTube in October and dozens of Brunswick families tuned in.

The webinar featured Common Sense Media’s Robbie Torney and Yvette Renteria, as well as Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Chris Dede and online learning expert Claire Goldsmith, principal of Lamplight Learning. It offered families a primer on all things AI. “A focus on writing and creative thinking is more important than ever, and parents and caregivers can help kids get prepared by exploring AI tools like ChatGPT together,” said Lisa Solomon, Common Sense Connected Schools lead, who introduced the panel. “Learning what the tools can and (perhaps more importantly) cannot do is a key media literacy skill that can begin at home.”

The panel also previewed Common Sense’s lessons on AI literacy and its new ratings and reviews of various AI platforms. It highlighted these resources: • A useful blog post about Helping Kids Navigate the World of AI • Common Sense’s Guide to ChatGPT for Parents and Caregivers • Short two-minute video: What Is ChatGPT? • 5 Tips for Talking to Your Kids About Generative AI • Common Sense Explains video: Is ChatGPT Helping Students Cheat?

The conversation was recorded and can be found above.

Nutrition was the topic of a very popular, first-ever smallgroup Health & Wellness Parent Conversation Circle with Gianna Masi, Brunswick’s performance dietitian, and Keiran Halton, head strength and conditioning coach.

Discussion topics included: • Body composition goals using training and nutrition • Losing and gaining weight with healthy habits

• Meal assembly for these goals • Satiety: what foods help with hunger and fullness • Myths debunked about nutrition & training/weightlifting • Knowing risk: restrictive/binge patterns and behaviors • Supplements and supplement safety • Creatine, protein powders, etc.

• Caffeine and energy drinks The event was so popular that a second session was added.

Masi has also been meeting with Middle and Upper School varsity teams this fall to discuss nutrition for athletes.

“I care very much how they feel on and off the field,” Masi said. “They are student-athletes, and I know they have a lot of demands placed on them. We talk about not just nutrition science, but also a strategy for good nutrition and thinking about the day ahead. How they need to be thinking about their fuel.”

Care for the Bear is in its second year at the Pre and Lower School. The initiative has seen boys receive their very own stuffed bear to help them digest some of the fundamental lessons of self-care: hand washing and hygiene, changing clothes, eating right, exercise, sleep, and brushing your teeth.

“The hope is they will learn to take care of themselves by taking care of the bear,” said Emma Eschricht, Pre and Lower School nurse. continued on page 8

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The Brunswick Trust Health & Wellness continued from page 7

Trust Time continues at the Pre and Lower Schools — the sessions are built into the calendar and see bi-weekly classroom lessons around health and wellness and the RULER social-emotional learning curriculum.

Counselor Joey Zannino kicked off Trust Time with visits to every classroom in both buildings. In Pre-K and Kindergarten, Zannino introduced the Mood Meter, a key component of the RULER curriculum that helps students and teachers recognize and label their emotions, while also recognizing that all emotions matter and can be useful in different kinds of activities and learning.

At the Lower School especially, Zannino has been building lessons and activities that encourage boys to think about their best selves — and tying that idea to this year’s theme, Words Matter.

“Words can pull you toward or away from your best self,” he noted. “We are thinking about what our best self looks like.

It’s a goal, a constant goal. We are not going to be our best selves every minute of every day.”

At the Pre School, Zannino has introduced On Monday When It Rained by Cherryl Kachenmeister, a photographic picture book that helps Pre Schoolers think about emotions and how they are represented in facial expressions.

All four divisions enjoyed Farmers Markets, with Pre and Lower School boys enjoying a first-of-its-kind fall farmstand experience complete with cider and donuts. Both Pre and Lower Schoolers were invited to visit a Farmers Market that FLIK Independent School Dining created in the respective Dining Halls — boys had a chance to ask questions about how and where the food was grown, and bring three freshly picked items home.

“This was a great opportunity to learn more about locally sourced, healthy, and organic foods,” said Katie Signer. “We are lucky, indeed!”

Herberth Melgar, Brunswick food service director, said students were

especially excited to see some of the unusual produce grown by area farms, including Moon Grapes and Asian Pears.

“They were very unusual grapes!”

Melgar said. “I thought I had seen everything. The kids were pretty excited to see that. They are long and pretty tasty, too!”

Upper and Middle Schoolers had similar experiences with area farms showcasing their products in the dining hall.

RECOMMENDED READING

Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic — And What We Can Do About It

By Jennifer Breheny Wallace

Navigating Your Son’s Digital Future: Parent “To Do” List (PDF) Resources (PDF)

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The Brunswick Trust Service & Sustainability

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runswick is fortunate to have Courtney Spada, M.D., serving as its new Director of Service Leadership and Sustainability.

“Courtney brings incredible experience and leadership to our program from her career as a pediatrician, a teacher, a community organizer, and someone who lives committed to service,” said Sarah Burdett, chief integration officer.

Just as it did for the other Trust pillars, Burdett said, Brunswick is working to formalize its programming for service leadership and sustainability.

In community service, Spada is working to support coordinators in each division, to help each division establish service programs that are appropriate for age and stage, and to bring a sense of purpose and community.

When it comes to sustainability, Spada is working to help all students on campus remember that service includes taking care of our world.

“She is working carefully with the Upper School Sustainability Council and with students in each division to recognize the importance of our habits as we think about taking care of the world that surrounds us,” Burdett said.

Six boys from the Upper, Middle, and Lower Schools and their parents volunteered at a Jewish Family Services Friendsgiving, an event that brought together refugee children from Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nicaragua, and six other countries for an afternoon of fun and friendship at St. Basil Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Seminary in Stamford.

Brunswick students served food, organized crafts, and socialized — including one moment when

boys worked to teach each other secret handshakes and another that saw them start a pick-up soccer game on the grass lawn alongside the seminary.

“It’s just amazing, how there is a universal language in the game of soccer,” said Spada. “Our boys were playing with boys from all over the world. It was very moving.”

JFS Greenwich has been spearheading an interfaith refugee resettlement program for many years, helping resettle families from different countries, religions, and ethnic groups by getting them connected to housing, medical care, employment, and more.

“I really think it was an empathy-building event to everyone who was there,” Spada said. “It was great to see. This is an antidote to all the despair about all the things happening around the world.”

Absent since before COVID-19, advisory service trips have restarted this year with a redesign thanks to Amy Kerekes, Upper School community service director. The mandatory trips were a mainstay before the pandemic — back then, each advisory would visit the Boys and Girls Club of Greenwich to work with children two to three times a year.

In designing the restart, Kerekes decided to model advisory service trips after last spring’s hugely successful Community Service Day, which saw 430 students choose between 22 projects and locations all over the region. Now, advisory service trips will also be able to select from a wide range of initiatives, including food service, park clean-up, and visits to senior living centers.

“The point was choice,” Kerekes said. “As humans, when we have a choice, we feel more empowered.” continued on page 10

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The Brunswick Trust

Service & Sustainability continued from page 9

Opportunities for Upper School community service are listed on an updated Upper School Service Calendar.

Every year, Upper Schoolers kick off the new school year with service trips on the Thursday after Labor Day. Upper Schoolers lent some muscle to outdoor clean-up service projects at area parks.

Ninth graders worked at Pemberwick Park and Byram Park in Greenwich, tenth graders traveled to Wilton for a project, and eleventh graders offered their labor at Helen Binney Kitchell Natural Park and Greenwich Point.

“We begin the year saying that we believe service is important,” Kerekes noted.

Sixteen Upper School boys and their teachers embarked on a relief mission coordinated by the group Midnight Run. Students collected clothing and made sandwiches and toiletry kits before heading out on a Friday evening to distribute the donations to the homeless on the streets of New York City.

Midnight Run offers an especially “hands-on” type of service opportunity for boys.

“That human exchange, rather than the exchange of goods, is the essence of the Midnight Run mission,” according to its website.

The volunteer organization is dedicated to finding common ground between the housed and the homeless, and coordinates over 1,000 late-night relief missions per year in an effort to create a forum for trust, sharing, understanding, and affection.

Middle Schoolers helped pack 500 hygiene bags for natural disaster victims through a service project spearheaded by science teacher Krista Wynia and the church she attends, the Second Congregational Church in Greenwich. Each bag contained a towel, wash cloth, comb, toothbrush, toothpaste, and fingernail clipper. In all, seven volunteers from the Middle School and their parents helped out. The bags were distributed to flood victims in Vermont, hurricane victims in Florida, and wildfire victims in California.

Over 50 boys stepped up to run for Lower School student government, and each and every one of them headed up to the podium to make his case in front of the entire school community.

“You really have to have courage to stand up and deliver a speech in front of all those people,” noted Brett Martell, student council coordinator.

After the assembly, students returned to homerooms, where all had the opportunity to vote. continued on page 11

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The Brunswick Trust

to help teach English to immigrants adapting to America and who are, in many cases, on their path to citizenship.

The class is geared toward using Spanish in a practical, concrete way — monthly community service field trips that explore Latino/Hispanic ties are part of the curriculum.

Service & Sustainability continued from page 10

“An additional lesson being taught is voting” said Martell.

“When you look at the world as a whole, so many don’t have that opportunity. It’s a gift.”

The four winners were Crescent Yang, treasurer; Jake Spada, secretary; Tack Sickles, vice president; Reed Solis, president — though everyone who runs has a role on student council, regardless of who wins. One of its first projects is the Thanksgiving Canned Food Drive, which saw over a ton of food collected for area food pantries in 2022.

“If everyone does a little bit, it does make a big impact,” Martell said. “When you combine all that effort, doing one little thing does make a huge difference.”

Fourteen boys from the Español en Vivo elective have been visiting Building One Community in Stamford once each month

“Visits are a huge success,” said Jamie González-Ocaña, chair of the Modern Language Department. “Our boys re outstanding and represent our institution really well.

The Building One Community students loved having our boys there — everyone has a blast! We play charades, do English vocabulary activities, and help with wording and sentence forming.”

It was another highly successful year for pie sales to benefit the 100 families in Horizons at Brunswick. More than 500 pies were sold, enough for a healthy profit to benefit Horizons, plus a donation of two pies and a $50 gift card to each Horizons family.

This was the first year that students in third, seventh, and eighth grade participated in the pie sale — pies were also sold at Bear Fair during Homecoming Weekend.

“I want to thank the community for its generosity,” said Marianne Barnum, executive director of Horizons.

RECOMMENDED LISTENING HHS.gov’s House Calls Podcast Episodes: What Can Nature Teach Us About Connection?

Can We All Be Healers?

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