Discussion: Please help fund kids at US champs
in: US S/M/L Champs 2011 & WRE (Oct 21–23, 2011 - Lynn, MA, US)
Oct 12, 2011 12:19 PM
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barb:
UPDATE **** We have reached our goal! *** thanks to the generosity of APers -- and please consider donating to the US teams (junior and senior)!
:-) Barb -----
Dear friends,
I convinced a 5th grade teacher in Cambridge to bring her entire class to the sprints on Friday 10/21. They will be running the white course. They have been learning about maps and orienteering at school.
This is an urban school, with 55% free and reduced lunch (that's how we measure family income here), and 53% students of color. The principal tells me that for a lot of families, it really is a hardship to pay full cost for field trips; many families have lost jobs or have had their salaries reduced in the current economic downturn. I would like to ask you to help me pay for the costs of the trip: A-meet registration for the kids, and the transportation. I'm hoping to raise $470.
Here are the mechanics:
Please let me know (either on this thread or by email) how much you plan to send in. (so that we don't raise too much!)
Then write a check to Friends of the Morse School, 40 Granite St, Cambridge, MA 02139, and send it in ASAP. Please write on it "5th grade orienteering". You will get a letter back so that you can get the tax writeoff for a donation to a non-profit. Alternatively, I can make the contribution for you and you can reimburse me later.
Thank you very much for your support!
I will also mention here that there will be a food concession fund-raiser for the US junior team, on Saturday of the meet, and I hope you will all contribute to that as well!
As inspiration, here are a couple photos from another recent school field trip:
:-) Barb -----
Dear friends,
I convinced a 5th grade teacher in Cambridge to bring her entire class to the sprints on Friday 10/21. They will be running the white course. They have been learning about maps and orienteering at school.
This is an urban school, with 55% free and reduced lunch (that's how we measure family income here), and 53% students of color. The principal tells me that for a lot of families, it really is a hardship to pay full cost for field trips; many families have lost jobs or have had their salaries reduced in the current economic downturn. I would like to ask you to help me pay for the costs of the trip: A-meet registration for the kids, and the transportation. I'm hoping to raise $470.
Here are the mechanics:
Please let me know (either on this thread or by email) how much you plan to send in. (so that we don't raise too much!)
Then write a check to Friends of the Morse School, 40 Granite St, Cambridge, MA 02139, and send it in ASAP. Please write on it "5th grade orienteering". You will get a letter back so that you can get the tax writeoff for a donation to a non-profit. Alternatively, I can make the contribution for you and you can reimburse me later.
Thank you very much for your support!
I will also mention here that there will be a food concession fund-raiser for the US junior team, on Saturday of the meet, and I hope you will all contribute to that as well!
As inspiration, here are a couple photos from another recent school field trip:
Oct 12, 2011 2:26 PM
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Would the Morse School be interested in applying for matching gifts from my employer? If so, I can include a matching gift form.
Oct 12, 2011 7:43 PM
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This is so great! Thanks to everyone who donated to these kids; I think this is a great thing to do!
Oct 12, 2011 7:46 PM
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All the hours invested by many in the CSU A-meet seem so much more worthwhile knowing that a bunch of kids will have the opportunity to run in it. Thanks to barb and everyone who donated!
Oct 16, 2011 6:47 PM
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barb:
Here's a quote from the junior high trip a week ago:
"After learning how to read the map and looking at it so long it was really cool to do it in real life."
"After learning how to read the map and looking at it so long it was really cool to do it in real life."
Oct 23, 2011 11:11 AM
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barb:
Thanks again to everyone who helped with our trip on Friday.
There was a wide range of level of ability for the kids, after our three weeks (six sessions) of training in class and in a local park. About half the kids decided to shift to recreational, group categories. Some of the kids did really well with the navigation. Everyone (kids, staff, parents) was enthusiastic about the trip as it unfolded.
It was a bit tricky to handle the changed categories and start times (due to needing to recycle the chaperones), and I thank CSU for accommodating us! CSU was super welcoming and helpful.
Eric Bone visited the kids the day before the sprints, in their classroom. They had already known about him from the orienteering poster and other photos of orienteers I had brought in and posted in their classroom. He signed posters for each kid, but many wanted more autographs, personalized. They peppered him with questions (both about orienteering and not), and he did a little more training with them. When he saw them at the meet, he greeted them and encouraged them further. Hero worship seems to be a useful tool in school-O.
I've worked with hundreds of school kids over the past decade, and found that I haven't gotten a lot of them later showing up at local meets, though a few do go regularly. I know there is this idea around that it's not so useful to work with schools because it doesn't translate to starts at A meets which for some people is the ultimate goal -- and beyond that, to the US having a deeper field of elite orienteers to send to WOC. I don't know how much I buy into those goals; it may be that exposing kids to orienteering is a worthwhile goal on its own. At any rate, this time, I figured that I'd just skip all the hoping they'd show up later at a real meet, and just bring them to one from the get-go.
Who knows, later these kids might run into orienteering again, and take it up. Or maybe someone will help me cultivate the couple of kids that I always find in every class, who could potentially be drawn into the sport. (Clem, if you read this, your work colleague's son did real well on Friday, and so I think his mom is ripe for "cultivating".) Clearly, they enjoyed the experience and intensity of going to a real A meet.
There was a wide range of level of ability for the kids, after our three weeks (six sessions) of training in class and in a local park. About half the kids decided to shift to recreational, group categories. Some of the kids did really well with the navigation. Everyone (kids, staff, parents) was enthusiastic about the trip as it unfolded.
It was a bit tricky to handle the changed categories and start times (due to needing to recycle the chaperones), and I thank CSU for accommodating us! CSU was super welcoming and helpful.
Eric Bone visited the kids the day before the sprints, in their classroom. They had already known about him from the orienteering poster and other photos of orienteers I had brought in and posted in their classroom. He signed posters for each kid, but many wanted more autographs, personalized. They peppered him with questions (both about orienteering and not), and he did a little more training with them. When he saw them at the meet, he greeted them and encouraged them further. Hero worship seems to be a useful tool in school-O.
I've worked with hundreds of school kids over the past decade, and found that I haven't gotten a lot of them later showing up at local meets, though a few do go regularly. I know there is this idea around that it's not so useful to work with schools because it doesn't translate to starts at A meets which for some people is the ultimate goal -- and beyond that, to the US having a deeper field of elite orienteers to send to WOC. I don't know how much I buy into those goals; it may be that exposing kids to orienteering is a worthwhile goal on its own. At any rate, this time, I figured that I'd just skip all the hoping they'd show up later at a real meet, and just bring them to one from the get-go.
Who knows, later these kids might run into orienteering again, and take it up. Or maybe someone will help me cultivate the couple of kids that I always find in every class, who could potentially be drawn into the sport. (Clem, if you read this, your work colleague's son did real well on Friday, and so I think his mom is ripe for "cultivating".) Clearly, they enjoyed the experience and intensity of going to a real A meet.
Oct 23, 2011 1:32 PM
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This sounds great!
I'm one of those people who doesn't think that most school-O will readily translate into lots of starts. BUT, that doesn't mean that I don't think it's worthwhile! Of course, I think O is worthwhile as a school activity for many reasons, even if none of the students ever goes to a real meet. But it is also possible that some of these kids, somewhere down the road, will be more likely to get into O because they were introduced to "the real thing" by you many years previously.
Also, by taking these kids to a real meet I think you are showing them that not everything they do in school is boring and only "educational". ;-) Thanks for putting so much work into these trips!
I'm one of those people who doesn't think that most school-O will readily translate into lots of starts. BUT, that doesn't mean that I don't think it's worthwhile! Of course, I think O is worthwhile as a school activity for many reasons, even if none of the students ever goes to a real meet. But it is also possible that some of these kids, somewhere down the road, will be more likely to get into O because they were introduced to "the real thing" by you many years previously.
Also, by taking these kids to a real meet I think you are showing them that not everything they do in school is boring and only "educational". ;-) Thanks for putting so much work into these trips!
This discussion thread is closed.