Brunswick Trust Newsletter, Spring 2023

Page 1

The Brunswick Trust

Honor: A Time for Celebration

Spring at Brunswick is a time of honor. As we graduate our seniors, we recognize and celebrate both impressive individual achievements as well as the positive collective impact that this senior class has had on its “younger brothers” and on our larger Brunswick community. We also celebrate those boys in other divisions — kindergarten, fourth grade, and eighth grade — who have used their “Courage, Honor, and Truth” to meet the milestone of finishing one division and preparing to take their strengths and hopes on to the next one. As we close this academic year, we honor all students, faculty, and staff who have dedicated themselves to the betterment of self and others.

As we look to summer, we encourage all to spend some time honoring yourselves. The more flexible schedule of summer can provide welcome time to practice healthy habits around sleep, technology, and exercise and to find hours to dedicate to work or hobbies that give us each a sense of purpose and passion.

Thank you for your support of The Brunswick Trust. Congratulations and enjoy the summer!

Character & Leadership

“Who or what should Brunswick boys be? What qualities and traits should they embody?”

Such were the questions that Lower School Head Katie Signer posed as the Brunswick community came together last fall to kick off the 2022-23 school year; the Lower School always raises a theme as it convenes for another year of teaching and learning, and boys were tasked with thinking through ways “To Be” a Brunswick boy.

Just in time for the final weeks of school and the days that can sometimes bring extra energy along with

spring sunshine, fourth grade character ambassadors have an answer.

“Be a Beacon.”

It was a message ambassadors brought to classrooms in early April. For their fifth visit of the year, fourth grade character leaders worked to convey the characteristics of good leaders as they also introduced the “Beacon Board” — a public celebration of boys who get “caught” doing the right thing in the classroom, the lunchroom, and the playground.

continued on page 2

HEALTH & WELLNESS CHARACTER & LEADERSHIP DIVERSITY, EQUITY, INCLUSION & BELONGING SERVICE & SUSTAINABILITY NEWSLETTER

The Brunswick Trust

Character & Leadership

continued from page 1

“We are really looking for those acts of kindness that happen all the time, so we can highlight them and showcase the students who are showing us the right way,” said Brett Martell, coordinator of the ambassador program. “The board has continued to grow. The teachers all have eyes out. It’s turned into something engaging for the boys, who all want to see their names up there.” Ambassadors are hoping to promote leading by example — not just by the student council and the ambassadors, but across the entire school.

“If kids are eager and being competitive about doing the right thing, that’s a win,” Martell said. “As the year winds down, spring fever sometimes sets in, and this is something to lean on while we still have a month of school. It helps maintain that focus, to keep it up, and even step it up!”

The fifth and final ambassador visit of the year took place in early May. Ambassadors asked their schoolmates to reflect on their goals for showing “respect” and to finish the year strong. Ambassadors also introduced the final community service project of the year, asking boys to team up with the Pre School Bear Hugs Community Service Club and the Lower School Student Council to collect items for Happy Life Animal Rescue. In all, 22 fourth graders have served as ambassadors this year, visiting classrooms of their younger schoolmates to deliver news, run activities, and speak the language of The Brunswick Trust.

Pre and Lower School Trust Time in February featured lessons designed to get ’Wick’s youngest thinking about community — and especially how that sense of belonging is not created by accident or miracle.

Using A Kids Book About Community by Shane Feldman, Brunswick Trust Coordinator Kate Duennebier and her colleague Brian Coughlin created Making Connections, with one lesson aimed at identifying what community is and the second aimed at “building” it.

The lessons proved to be a great opportunity to resurface the character words that adorn the staircases at the Lower School and also to reinvigorate the character “pillars’’ that convey the message of The Brunswick Trust to Pre Schoolers.

Students worked on projects designed to show how character itself serves as a pillar for community, creating the foundation on which community rests.

“In the long run, how does the character we bring to school each day contribute to the strength of our community?” Duennebier asked.

Duennebier and Coughlin visited every Pre and Lower School classroom to convey the lessons.

Trust Time is now built into the calendar at the Pre and Lower Schools; the sessions see bi-weekly classroom visits from teams of staff from The Brunswick Trust, from Health & Wellness and the school counseling office, and from Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging.

Students from The Brunswick Union showcased civil discourse in an April assembly in Baker Theater, hosting a discussion designed to demonstrate how it’s possible to discuss sensitive topics without resorting to yelling and insults.

Modeled on the Oxford Union debating society, The Brunswick Union was formed about four years ago in response to increasing vitriol in political speech. Assemblies, which up until this year have been scripted, have featured discourse around topics like the border wall, gun legislation, and voter identification laws.

This year, organizers dropped the scripted format and the result was a lively discussion centered on the advent of AI and its effect on education.

“It was so much more authentic,” said Kate Duennebier, who worked with speech teacher Taryn Petrelli and Lia Mehos, advisor to the Debate Club, to organize the assembly. “It showed when people come together to disagree, you still need to listen. There is still a code of decorum.

“I think they rose to the challenge in an impressive way,” she said.

2
Students who participated included Tomas Jasson ’23, Jackson Fels ’23, Kai Le ’23, Gabe Lopez ’24, and Andrew Tu ’24.

The Brunswick Trust

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging

body or your mind works differently from other people’s. Some disabilities are visible, and some are invisible.”

The story brought boys to the conclusion that asking intrusive questions can be difficult and upsetting for disabled people. Boys brainstormed better ways to react when encountering disabled people in our communities.

Newly elected leadership for Upper School Diversity in Action visited the Middle School in May to talk to rising freshmen about goals and expectations for next year.

DIA is totally integrated into the culture of both the Upper and Middle Schools; both clubs bring awareness of contemporary issues as well as “courageous conversation” around diversity issues.

At the Upper School, DIA club meets on Tuesday evenings and is instrumental in planning and preparing for the “A Global Brunswick” annual event, National Hispanic & Latino Heritage Month, Martin Luther King Jr. celebrations, and much more. Upper School DIA members also attend the National Student Diversity Leadership Conference (SDLC), where they have the opportunity to discuss varied diversity issues and initiatives and bring ideas back to campus.

First graders have been thinking about disability after reading What Happened to You? by James Catchpole and Karen George.

The book, shared by Lower School Librarian Beth Barsanti in April, introduces the theme of disability to young students in a matterof-fact way.

“We had a discussion about what a disability is,” said Barsanti. “It means your

Pre and Lower School boys are marking Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month in May through My Day With Gong Gong, a picture book by Sennah Yee that details a budding connection between a Chinese American girl and her Cantonese-speaking grandfather.

The girl, May, spends the day being dragged around Chinatown by her grandfather, understanding and being understood little — until the two make special connections even without being able to speak the same language.

Alecia Thomas, director of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, and Sean Stanley, associate director of DEIB, have been visiting both the Pre and Lower School to share the book with the boys.

Jason Kennedy ’16 served as speaker for the final get-together of the 2022-23 Black Student Mentorship Program, which brings together Brunswick African American students with an active and engaged cohort of African American alumni.

Kennedy spoke to a gathering of about 35 who turned up for some food and fellowship at the Lower School in May. After the talk, groups of mentors and mentees broke off into small clusters and made their way into nearby classrooms for conversation about success in school, college, and beyond.

Patrick Andrén ’93, chief operating officer at Brunswick, said alumni engagement with BSMP has been strong.

“Just as we always do at Brunswick, the goal is to foster a community for life,” he said.

continued on page 4

3

The Brunswick Trust

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging continued from page 3

The BSMP kicked off the year with a Homecoming gathering that brought about a big group of students, parents, and alumni together in the foyer of Sampson Field House just before the big football game. BSMP holds four meetings a year.

“It’s been very successful,” said Alecia Thomas. “It brings more of a sense of belonging.”

The program is sponsored by the DEIB and Alumni offices, as well as the Diversity Committee of the Board of Trustees. The goal is to provide social, career, and academic enhancement opportunities, while also strengthening the sense of belonging for Upper School students who self-identify as Black and/or African-American. Given the success of this pilot program, Brunswick is seeking to extend this type of alumni connection to a broader range of interested Upper School students. Middle Schoolers celebrated Women’s History Month with a March assembly that featured five of their teachers sharing

Health & Wellness

Atech insider turned storyteller and poet spoke to the Brunswick community about the impact social media has on life and learning in school and at home.

Max Stossel, founder of the non-profit Social Awakening, spoke to parents, faculty, and Upper and Middle School students about social media and its impact — noting especially its effects on social skills, focus, productivity, and feelings of self-worth.

Stossel offered tools to help teens, families, and teachers “survive and thrive” despite the near-constant enticements of the digital world.

We’ve Been Sneaking into Your Brains, his presentation for students, featured information about how technology is designed intentionally to capture our constant attention. Stossel used rhyme, poetry, and storytelling to underscore his messages to young people, and to offer ideas and tools about how to manage technology in their lives.

Stossel gave a similar keynote to parents — Education in the Age of Distraction — which detailed social media use among teens and offered “meaningful daily actions” for families. More information and resources can be found here:

• socialawakening.org

• awayfortheday.org

• pz.harvard.edu

stories about inspirational figures in their own lives. Teachers who presented were Erin Withstandley, Kate Duennebier, Deanna Smyers, Krista Taylor, and Denise Loeber.

“It was a chance for students to get

to know their female teachers, and to empower our teachers to share their stories,” said Stanley. “We wanted to showcase the strength of the female faculty members for the boys to see.”

Sixth grade Diversity in Action students also presented during the assembly; their topic was Inspirational Women in History: Hilary Clinton, Malala Yousafzai, Margaret Thatcher, Kalpana Chawhla, and Wilma Rudolph.

Matthew Walker Ph.D., a world-renowned sleep expert, visited Brunswick to speak with students, faculty, and parents about the imperative of sleep and its foundational role in education and all of human health and wellness.

Walker, a professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, spoke to students in a morning keynote entitled Sleep is Your Superpower. He sat with parents in the evening for a “fireside chat” in Baker Theater.

Walker told students that sleep plays a critical role in all learning and has a demonstrable effect on test scores. Sleep, he said, is the brain’s method of “hard saving” information, while it also helps lay the groundwork for new learning by preparing the brain for a new day.

continued on page 5

4

The Brunswick Trust

Series, which brings leading thinkers to campus for daylong visits that focus on wellness, insight, courage, and kindness.

Eat to Compete, a first-of-its-kind healthy snacking Snack Face-Off event for Upper Schoolers, took place in April.

Brunswick Health & Wellness took over the courtyard next to the dining hall during the lunch wave — setting up tables and streaming in some music to invite students into lessons about nutrition.

“The data is very clear. When sleep is abundant, minds flourish. When it’s not, they don’t.

“There is simply no aspect of your wellness that can retreat at the sign of sleep deprivation and get away unscathed,” he said. “It’s almost like a broken water pipe in your home. Sleep loss will leak down into every nook and cranny of your physiology.”

Walker said there are a number of ways to improve sleep and offered two specific tips for students. The first is regularity; he told students to go to bed and wake up at the same time every day, no matter whether it’s a weekday or a weekend. The second piece of advice he offered is to “keep it cool.” Brain and body temperature must drop in order to fall and stay asleep, he said, so the goal is to aim for a bedroom temperature of about 65 degrees.

Walker covered similar ground when he spoke to parents in an informal conversation moderated by Health & Wellness Director Marcie Molloy, M.D., in the evening, but he also further elucidated the benefits of the particular stage of sleep known as REM, or dream sleep, in both education and health.

“Dream sleep is essentially mental health,” he said. “It’s emotional first aid. REM sleep takes the sharp edges off painful experiences.”

In classroom learning, REM sleep is the critical difference between regurgitating facts and deep understanding of material.

“REM sleep is the difference between knowledge, which happens in the deep, non-REM sleep of ‘grabbing the facts,’ and wisdom, which is knowing what it all means when you put everything together.”

Walker is the author of the international best-seller Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams and founder and director of the Center for Human Sleep Science at UC Berkeley. The Stossel and Walker visits served as the third and fourth installments of the inaugural year of the ’WICK Center Speaker

Students had the chance to vote between two snack choices based on nutrition facts, ingredients, taste, and function — incorporating their preferences as well as nutrition literacy.

One goal was to educate students on exactly what makes a complete, healthy snack — including how combining a protein with a high-quality complex carbohydrate helps fuel activities on the practice fields and in the classroom.

“This works for both pre and post workout or practice — which is important to show grab-and-go options that will support academics as well as sports performance,” said Gianna Masi, Brunswick’s nutritionist.

Students learned how to read and understand nutrition labels, and how to use that information to select snacks that will better power their busy days.

They also had the chance to sample a no-added-sugar protein smoothie and entered a raffle to win gift cards to local healthy eateries.

“Overall, the event was a resounding success,” Masi said. “The students were fully engaged and actively participated in our wellness event, demonstrating a strong commitment to their overall health and well-being. It demonstrated the students’ strong commitment and curiosity.

Director of Aquatics Dawn Berrocal has had a busy spring teaching another cohort of Brunswick students crucial water safety skills through the American Red Cross Lifeguard Certification Program

Each spring, about 30 boys make their way through the course, many of them in preparation for summer jobs at

continued on page 6

5
Health & Wellness continued from page 4

The Brunswick Trust

Health & Wellness

continued from page 5

pools, beaches, and on the water. They learn water rescue techniques, CPR, and first aid.

“This is where these boys show their true instincts,” said Berrocal.

“These are life skills they can take with them beyond a summer job.”

Trust Time at the Pre School this spring has featured discussion on what it means to feel proud. Boys took turns sharing different things that they liked about themselves to get a better understanding of the feeling. They raised their hands to share their pride for things like being a good friend, being kind, working hard, being trustworthy, scoring goals, and making other people laugh.

I Like Myself! by Karen Beaumont provided more ideas — boys then had a chance to do an art project and draw themselves doing something that made them feel proud.

At the Lower School, the Trust Time topic was relationships, specifically friendships. Younger boys talked about friendship by discussing inclusiveness and fairness.

Horace and Morris, but Mostly Delores by James Howe provided fodder for discussion about ways friends leave each other out — as well as the ways they show fairness and inclusiveness and work to fix their problems.

“In the story, the friends went separate ways after a disagreement,” said Joey Zannino ’03, Lower School counselor. “Eventually, they realized they missed each other, and that it is better to be inclusive.”

Boys played a game of musical chairs, with the special challenge to play in a way that included everybody.

“This led to boys sharing seats, so that there was room for everyone, no matter how many more boys than chairs there were,” Zannino said. “The boys loved the opportunity to get up and move around the room while listening to music, and then they loved showing off how inclusive and considerate they could be to their classmates.”

Older boys also talked about friendship and practiced inclusiveness through group activities and a discussion of teamwork.

“We talked about how you cannot have teamwork without inclusiveness. If we leave someone out, they are no longer part of our team. We compared the class to a team. We talked about how Brunswick thinks teamwork is really important, and that is why all boys have to play sports in Middle and Upper School, so that they can practice and experience being part of a team.”

Bat’s Big Game by Margaret Read MacDonald enlightened the conversation further. The story features a bat that switches between playing for “The Animals” team and “The Birds” team, depending on who he thought was going to win.

“He was not being a good teammate or a good friend, and eventually was not allowed to play for either team,” Zannino said.

Boys then went up to the gym to practice teamwork through a game. Students had to hold hands with teammates and keep a balloon in the air. Boys started in pairs, then combined pairs for small groups, and then formed large groups.

“Boys all agreed that it was much easier to work with just one other person, but it was more fun to work with a bigger group, even if it required more communication and understanding,” Zannino said.

“Afterwards, we discussed what it felt like to be dependent on others in your group, how it felt to be included in the group, what it felt like to be paired randomly with someone and not your best friend, and how it felt to work together with others to accomplish a goal.”

continued on page 7

6

The Brunswick Trust

Health & Wellness

continued from page 6

Anti-bullying was the theme of a Middle School assembly that saw seniors in the Upper School Connections program speak to younger boys about leadership, what brotherhood means, and how to be a force for good.

Key to the Upper Schoolers’ message was the concept of being an “Upstander” — a person who intervenes and pushes back against bullying.

“How to be a force for good is to be an ‘Upstander,’” said Leslie Anderson, coordinator of Connections.

“It was so powerful. There was rapt attention. The Upper School boys are like heroes to them.”

Upper Schoolers used the assembly to speak about their own Brunswick experiences, offer advice about coming high school years, and urge kindness above all else.

“Leadership isn’t easy,” Tomas Delgado ’23 told the boys. “People look at everything you do and depend on you to show them how to act. It takes courage to do the right thing.”

Trip Williams ’23 described the close bonds he has formed with classmates during his years at Brunswick — and how trying to seem “cool” can interfere with the valuable work of building friendships.

“We have all heard it countless times, the idea of the Brunswick brotherhood and that we are all brothers here,” he said. “While it may be cliche to say, there is a reason you hear it all the time. And that’s because it’s true.

“People will remember and care about who was kind before they remember who was cool.”

After the assembly, students broke into advisories for small group discussion led by the Upper School boys.

Aside from Williams and Delgado, seniors who spoke at the assembly included Miles Barakett, Jackson Fels, Luke Michalik, Jesse Schutzman, and Holden Fraser.

Brunswick was well represented at Hope Day, a first-ever townwide event designed to “smash the stigma” around mental illness.

Organized by Greenwich Together and held in April at Arch Street, the day featured activities, food, and entertainment — with Brunswick’s own Winston Rider, also known as Winston Mock ’23, providing a heartfelt and genuine musical set in his singer-songwriter style.

Brunswick Swim Coach Aaron Montgomery served on a panel discussion on mental health and sports, while the student-run club Varsity Athletes Against Substance Abuse staffed a table offering information, connection, and community to help students make healthy choices on weekends.

Brunswick has become the first-ever high school to offer Insights Discovery testing to its students. Upper School juniors took the character and personality assessment last fall — students have spent the ensuing months meeting individually with an executive coach for hour-long “debrief” sessions to go over results.

Headquartered in Scotland, Insights Discovery is a personalassessment tool that, according to the company’s website, “brings psychology to life in an accessible, practical model that shows people how understanding themselves better can make a positive difference in the workplace and beyond.”

After taking the assessment, boys received a report detailing their individual strengths, communication styles, and more. Melissa Shahbazian P ’30, ’32, co-founder of Spark InSight Coaching, met with all 115 junior boys for a debrief session on what was learned. Those sessions were completed in early April and were followed by four one-hour group workshops to further dive into findings.

Upper School Dean of Student Life Jon Kaptcianos noted that high school juniors stand on the cusp of young adulthood and all that comes with it — in terms of selecting colleges and interviewing with admissions reps and college coaches. That makes junior year a particularly key moment for Upper Schoolers to gather key information about themselves.

continued on page 8

7

The Brunswick Trust

Common Sense Media, Lisa Damour Ph.D., author of the justreleased The Emotional Lives of Teenagers: Raising Connected, Capable, and Compassionate Adolescents, and Cara Natterson M.D., co-host of The Puberty Podcast.

Damour and Natterson offered timely, empathetic, and actionable advice that can help parents and caregivers build self-awareness and agency in their kids.

The talk was recorded and may be viewed on YouTube

RECOMMENDED READING

Health & Wellness

continued from page 7

“It’s an interesting way to be seen,” Kaptcianos added. A Common Sense Media Connected Schools Conversation that centered on teens and their digital lives streamed on YouTube in April. Dozens of Brunswick parents tuned in.

Let’s Talk about Digital Wellness: Understanding Your Child’s Emotions and Mental Health featured Supreet Mann Ph.D. of

Service & Sustainability

Community Service Day returned in full force in late April — for the first time since before the pandemic, over 400 boys fanned out to locations around the region “in person” to lend some muscle to spring clean-up, food pantry projects, and even a Bedford Historical Society graveyard.

In Greenwich, it was a big year for planting trees. Greenwich Town Park, Helen Binney Kitchel Natural Park, and Pomerance Park are all home to new saplings thanks to the boys, while the ground Greenwich Community Gardens at Armstrong Court stands well-prepared for spring seedlings of all sorts thanks to the labor of about 60 students who tackled the seasonal cleanup there.

Boys brought a different set of skills to visits with the senior residents of Parsonage Cottage and King Street Rehab. Students were finally able to enter the buildings for in-person, face-to-face visits. Boys brought games with them, and played and chatted.

Director of Community Services Amy Kerekes said she was able to offer boys a choice of service project for the first time. “It was really successful,” she said. “The boys pumped each other up. They were excited.”

Why We Sleep:

Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

Among the popular choices for service were Neighbor to Neighbor in Greenwich and Person to Person in Darien, as well as the Greenwich Boys & Girls Club, the Greenwich Land Trust, and the Bedford Historical Society.

The Sustainability Council launched its busy spring season with a visit from Barry Parkin P ’17, ’25, chief procurement and sustainability officer for the candy maker Mars, Incorporated. Parkin spoke to Upper School students in Baker Theater in late March; he detailed the company’s commitment to shift to 100 percent sustainable sourcing and packaging for all its candies by 2030.

The Council has also been hard at work planning and leading Earth Week initiatives and outreach.

Monday of Earth Week brought a

continued on page 9

8

The Brunswick Trust

Service & Sustainability

continued from page 8

meatless barbecue to the dining hall, as well as the launch of a weeklong recycling drive for used clothing, batteries, and single-use razor blades.

Later in the week, a ’Wick Pride tie dye event doubled as a recycling push as the Sustainability Council worked to encourage the reuse of old Brunswick t-shirts for the project, instead of purchasing new ones.

The Council also shared a Wednesday morning powerpoint in advisories, offering updates on the recycling drive as well as discussion of the theme of stewardship and a climate literacy quiz.

On Friday of Earth Week, the council co-sponsored a freedress day to raise funds for tree planting by the Greenwich Land Trust; students were encouraged to buck the “fast fashion” trend by wearing the tie dye t-shirts from the ’Wick Pride event.

Earth Day saw Brunswick students turn up to lend a hand to the Live Like Luke beach cleanup at Tod’s Point, as well as participation in environmental service projects around town on Community Service Day the following week.

The Sustainability Council aims to inspire more conversation and action on campus and around the world to protect the Earth and environment.

A cool and windy morning set the stage for the can’t-miss “friend-raiser” of the spring, the annual extravaganza known as ’Wick Walk Run.

Thanks to the organization and planning of chairs Katerina Pergola and Louise Oram Cho and their committee, the morning proved extra fun and hugely successful. Nearly 300 participants turned up to walk, jog, and run a 1.4 course around the beautiful King Street Campus — including a jaunt through the tunnel to the Middle School. Siblings, visitors from other schools, and parents cheered on the runners.

Before the race, everyone enjoyed morning donuts and coffee, and the Brunswick varsity soccer team got everyone moving with fun warm-up games. Music teacher Anne Wamunyu organized the Singing Bruins, who did a beautiful job singing the national anthem. Mr. “O” led pre-run stretches.

Many volunteered to make the event the huge success that it was. Over 20 Middle Schoolers marshaled the course and cheered on participants. Lower School technology teacher Tim Coupe emceed the event and distributed prizes to the winners. Marc Strileckis helped oversee all aspects of the day’s events, including race course logistics, audio, and first aid.

Eighth grade Sweet Readers have been using poetry to connect with residents of senior living homes in Texas and New Hampshire this spring — this year, the Sweet Readers curriculum is “Male Poets of the 1960s,” so boys have read and shared poems by poets like James Baldwin, Louis MacNeice, Richard Brautigan, and Ted Hughes.

“These poems are jumping off points for conversations about technology, nature, memory, paradise, and more,” said Middle School Latin Fellow Tyler Boudreau. “Many of the boys have been writing poems collaboratively with their adult partners and they do a great job of allowing the adults to take center stage.”

Sweet Readers has been a Middle School Community Service mainstay for years. For a long time, it has been led by Erin Withstandley, but starting in 2023-23, Boudreau will take over as coordinator.

continued on page 10

9

The Brunswick Trust

Service & Sustainability

continued from page 9

This year, 70 ’Wick boys participated in Friday afternoon sessions with seniors, which are still virtual to protect residents from unwittingly picking up any kind of illness. By all accounts, it has been a particularly successful cycle.

“The Texas site this winter was incredible. In all my Sweet Readers experience (in-person or virtual), we’ve never had a more engaged, livelier group,” Eighth Grade Dean Anthony Fischetti, a 10-year veteran of Sweet Readers, wrote in an email.

“Literally by week two, our boys were specifically asking to be matched up again with their partners by name. Great stuff. “Virtual has its challenges, to be sure, but I’m constantly amazed at how I can go into a Friday afternoon session exhausted from the week and yet consistently emerge an hour later with a huge ear-to-ear smile on my face and a brimming sense of joy and fulfillment to take me into the weekend.”

Horizons at Brunswick is set to embark on its 10th anniversary summer with the arrival of 137 students in kindergarten through eighth grade in late June — including 16 new kindergarteners who will embark on a nine-year, yearround academic and enrichment program that will take them to the threshold of high school.

It’s a significant milestone for Horizons, and there’s lots of innovation as the program heads towards its first full decade of service, including a spiffy new mission statement:

“Horizons at Brunswick School works to advance educational equity by providing K-8 Greenwich public school boys from under-resourced communities access to joyful and engaging learning opportunities.”

Also new this summer, Horizons welcomes Denise Meza Reyes to a newly created Student and Family Engagement Coordinator position. Reyes is actually in her seventh year with Horizons, having most recently served as a fourth grade teacher.

Also new this summer, Middle School students will benefit from a Signature Field Trip program. Fifth graders will attend a professional baseball game; sixth graders will travel to New York City to see a Broadway show; seventh graders will camp overnight on Island Beach; and the culminating signature field trip for eighth graders will be spending two nights and three days on Brunswick’s Vermont Campus.

“Thank you, Brunswick School, for opening your Vermont Campus to us for this special, final field trip!” Horizons Executive Director Marianne Barnum said.

Barnum also offered a big thank you to the BPA Fashion Show, which designated Horizons as the beneficiary for its gala event, held in April. There are still opportunities to volunteer at Horizons this summer, including slots as guest reader for students in kindergarten through second grade. Contact mbarnum@ brunswickschool.org.

A Brunswick/Greenwich Academy t-shirt sale this spring aimed to raise $1,400 for a national foundation that works to promote healthy relationships.

The organization, One Love, was started in memory of University of Virginia lacrosse player Yeardley Love, who was killed by her abusive boyfriend in 2010.

Brunswick lacrosse, tennis, track and field, and baseball teams all participated in the sale, and many wore the shirts for a game warmup in early May.

The GA One Love Club coordinates with Brunswick to raise money for the One Love organization. GA teams participating included lacrosse, tennis, track and field, water polo, and crew.

10

Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.