Hats off to the Henry Grew Elementary School in Hyde Park!

This week’s school spotlight story goes out to the ASNE poet-athletes at the Henry Grew School in Hyde Park, who have raised over $800.00 in proceeds to benefit and promote their student-led initiative Learning Outside the Classroom! The SCORES Students at the Grew creatively raised funds for field trips, performances and other fun activities by hosting two separate “Hat Days, one for students and one for teachers. On these Hat Days, event participants were able to wear a hat during the school day if they paid the $2.00 participation fee, thus allowing students and teachers to break the school’s “no hat” policy for this very special cause.

ASNE poet-athlete Dave was especially pleased with his team’s project because he got to “wear a Rock and Roll hat all day,” and because his team made lots of money. Olive, one of ASNE’s exemplary Coaches stated that the event “was a great success,” and relayed her enthusiasm by telling teachers at other schools to follow her team’s lead. In addition to raising money through Hat Day, ASNE’s poet-athletes also sold snacks and beverages during lunch in order to reach their impressive sum of $850.00.

Both Hat Days and the student’s entrepreneurship during lunch were implemented as part of ASNE’s spring season writing curriculum, Writing for the Community (WFTC). During this 10-week spring session, students at all of ASNE’s schools learn to use writing to affect social change. After studying the power of writing forms such as political poetry, letters for a cause, newspaper articles, petitions, and comics, our poet-athletes use these forms to write on behalf of their own causes. For ASNE’s poet-athletes at the Henry Grew School, where America SCORES is the only afterschool program in operation, this cause was to ensure that all Grew students were able to participate in fun activities both during school and afterschool, designating the SCORES students as both leaders and advocates for their peers.

Next up for ASNE’s poet-athletes at the Grew is ASNE’s Jamboree! year-end festival, where all of ASNE’s elementary school participants will display poster boards that document the impact they had on their respective communities as a testament to the combined impact of each SCORES team’s work. This years Jamboree! will take place on Saturday, June 5th at the Franklin Park Playstead.