A Record Year for Saint David's Boys' Pennies for Puppies Project

Initiated in 2005 by parents Connie Hays (R.I.P.) and Sally Connolly, Saint David's fourth graders work each year on behalf of The Seeing Eye Foundation through the Pennies for Puppies project. The Seeing Eye's mission is to enhance the independence, dignity, and self-confidence of people who are blind, through the use of trained guide dogs.

This multifaceted project begins with a visit to The Seeing Eye Foundation's headquarters in Morristown, New Jersey, where the boys tour the facility, visit with people and their guide dogs, and learn about all that goes into the dogs' training.

They then collect donations and execute a bake sale in our lobby, for which they do all the work: the baking, advertising, pricing, and selling. This year's bake sale, held last week, raised a record $3,106.

In yesterday's special Assembly, fourth graders presented a check to Mr. Don MacGowan, Volunteer Coordinator for The Seeing Eye. Mr. MacGowan engaged the boys in a discussion about what they had learned during their visit to Seeing Eye and thanked them for efforts in support of the organization.

Our mission inspires boys to be good by doing good. Not only does this project provide our boys with an opportunity to contribute to the greater good, it also enables them to appreciate and learn from people who experience the world differently than they do.

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OLIVER!

This morning our fifth graders continued a great year-end tradition at Saint David's, The Fifth Grade Musical. The boys performed Oliver! and they were fantastic, providing impressive performances and demonstrating great vocal ability. They have been mastering the dialogue and musical numbers for weeks, and clearly gave it their all. Congratulations to the cast on a job well done, and to their Producers/Teachers James Hubbard and Jamie MacNeille, Director Phyllis Clark, Musical Conductor Jeff Moore, and the Parent Committee of Cynthia Chapman, Susan Kissane, Tara Neumann, Joyce Restituto, and Ann Roberts. Musical theater is alive and well at Saint David's!

Sixth Graders Meet with Dr. Carter Emmart, Director of Astrovisualization at the American Museum of Natural History

Dr. Carter Emmart with Saint David's Sixth Graders This past Friday, as part of our unique partnership with the American Museum of Natural History, sixth graders had the great honor to attend a private lecture given by Carter Emmart, Director of Astrovisualization at AMNH. Dr. Emmart told the boys about his passion for science along with an overview of the history of the Hayden Planetarium. He also gave the boys advice on how to take scientific information about the universe and compile it into an interesting and captivating show for an audience. The boys were able to see Dr. Emmart's original sketches, which helped create the Uniview program they are using to develop their presentations. The session provided our boys with an opportunity to learn how art and science come together in the planetarium, and to obtain expert advice on developing their own space shows from one of the creators of Uniview . You can learn more about Dr. Emmart's work and Univie...

Surf's Up for Horizons at Saint David's

Little can top catching a wave to beat the heat on an exceptionally hot summer's day. Yesterday, as the temperatures soared into the nineties, the Horizons at Saint David's Eighth Grade class traveled to Rockaway Beach with their teachers for surf lessons with New York's premiere surf school, Locals Surf School. The boys have been taking swimming lessons through our program since their first summer with us in 2012. At that time, they were were rising first graders, and our inaugural cohort of Horizons students. Yesterday, they were ready to go, and, as these pictures show, they had a blast while learning a new skill. This is the eighth year of Horizons at Saint David's, a six-week multi-faceted academic and cultural summer experience whose mission is to prevent summer slide in elementary school boys from low-income families. We began the program in conjunction with Saint David's 60th anniversary in 2011, as one way that Saint David's as an ins...

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