More than you really want to know about Wellesley, Mass.
You’ve seen the lawn signs, you’ve seen the banners, but have you seen the lights? Wellesley High School’s Class of 2020 continues to feel the love heading into Saturday morning’s car parade and diploma pick-up.
(Thanks to LH for sharing video clip.)
Meanwhile, let’s not overlook the Wellesley Middle School students. Melissa Mack and family made sure they wouldn’t be…
It’s been a long time coming, but the Wellesley A Better Chance program has moved into a home of their own. After boxing up decades-worth of furniture, household goods, photo albums, holiday decorations, and all the other stuff that accumulates after living in one place for 48 years, it’s time for the program’s scholars and volunteers to make new memories in a new location.
The move became necessary after in Fall 2018, the ABC program learned that Wellesley College would no longer make available the yellow house at Norfolk Terrace. Since 1972, that college-owned property had been a constant in the lives of the students as they attended Wellesley High School as part of a boarding-school type program. The 4 – 6 students who are part of ABC in any given year are talented and promising young women of color who seek an academically rigorous high school curriculum.
After the news sank in, the program’s Board announced a “Home of Our Own” capital campaign to buy a new house. On April 1, 2020, ABC reached its ultimate goal and closed on a big, beautiful 4-bedroom home that can potentially expand to six bedrooms as needs change from year to year.
As 20 masked and socially distanced volunteers worked to move, unpack, and organize, the excitement cancelled out any lingering feelings of loss as the Norfolk Terrace house slowly emptied out. Volunteer Debora White says the next step is “unpacking and organizing to prepare to welcome six students in August to their beautiful new Wellesley ABC home.”
McCabe & Logan Movers generously donated the move of the furniture.
There’s still more to be done. To contribute to this effort, volunteer to help, or for more information on the program, please visit ABC’s website: http://wellesleyabc.org/
“We wanted to share our love for STEM and provide kids with our own perspectives on why these fields are so great,” Hyppolite says of Kickstart STEM’s origins.
New online courses are now being offered via Wellesley Rec for small groups to ensure interactivity. When registering, note activity #s: STEM is 322997, Scratch is 322999, and Python is 322998.
More: Wellesley School Committee presents update on Remote Learning 2.0
Swag angels (i.e., parent/guardian committee members) circulated throughout Wellesley again on Friday to gift graduating Wellesley High School seniors with goodie bags featuring stylish T-shirts.
While the students will miss out on the All Night Party and other annual senior activities, the commencement parade and other events are designed to show the grads how much we appreciate and respect them.
Thanks to parent Haig Tellalian for sharing these photos. That’s the sort of community support we’re talking about!
The parade route has been set for Wellesley High School’s Class of 2020, as graduates and their families will stream through town on the morning of Saturday, June 6. As we reported last month, the route indeed will go from Babson College to Wellesley High, where students will pick up their diplomas from their vehicles.
(By the way, kudos to Babson College for stepping up during the COVID-19 crisis to not only to provide the staging area for the parade, but for hosting Wellesley’s election now slated for the following Saturday.)
The town has now revealed how the parade will wind from Babson beginning at 9am to Wellesley High. It will head down Wellesley Avenue, take a right on Washington Street along the Boston Marathon rote, veer right onto Walnut Street past the Rec Center, turn right onto Cedar Street past Schofield and Fiske Elementary Schools, through that dangerous intersection at Hunnewell Street and back onto Wellesley Avenue before turning onto Clifford and Smith Streets to get to the high school.
The town’s invited to cheer on the students, who won’t be doing the driving, but might have a say in decorating the vehicles they’re in.
The Wellesley High graduation party has already started, in a way, as signs recognizing the 380 seniors have begun popping up in yards across town.
The Wellesley Sailing Team, which had its season scrapped this Spring due to the COVID-19 crisis, has maintained its unity by meeting weekly in a physically distant way to do trash pickup around town. The effort was organized by Alex Haidar, one of the team’s captains, and has included students and Coach Larry Lovett.
This past week the team tackled the Brook Path. The previous week, the student-athletes picked up 200 pounds of trash from Morses Pond, which is likely to stay pretty clean given that it’s been shut down at least for now…
Many Wellesley High athletes have shown generosity and team spirit under tough circumstances this spring. Among others, cross country runners raised $20K to supply healthcare workers with meals via a run-a-thon, the baseball team has been using Twitter and memorabilia to raise funds for the Greater Boston Food Bank, and hockey player sisters have been making cards for nursing home residents shut in due to the pandemic.
(Thanks to Lisa Haidar for sharing photos.)
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Members of the Wellesley High School a cappella group “Inchordination” missed out on performing at the annual spring Acastock concert and other events due to the coronavirus crisis, but they’ve put their voices and other skills together on a new video produced to help out the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life online event this weekend.
WHS senior Will Cohen-Pratt orchestrated the audio mix for this rendition of “Sucker” by the Jonas Brothers, as arranged by WHS Choral Accompanist Chad Weirick and edited by parent Steve Mendes (Melchor Becker handled beatboxing).
Cohen-Pratt wrote that “We chose ‘Sucker’ for our video because we thought the catchy hook and up-beat energy of the tune would lend itself well to a Zoom grid. We hope to lighten a few people’s day to make up for the postponed or cancelled performances this season.”
More: Wellesley High musicians, Air Traffic Controller band join forces on “Blame”
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