Grants in Action

Needham High School is bringing education into nature with a new outdoor classroom, featuring benches, newly planted trees and shrubs, and a walkway designed to create a garden setting. The project was funded by a grant from the Needham Education Foundation and the Needham High School PTC. It was designed by Michael Savrin, 16, a Life Scout and Needham High junior, and built by Savrin and fellow members of Boy Scout Troop 13. A dedication ceremony took place in October.

Luca “Lazylegz” Patuelli entertained and educated students at all of Needham’s public elementary schools this week as part of a rousing and inspiring kick-off to the Understanding our Different Abilities program.

Luca was born with Arthrogryposis, a rare disorder that causes limited joint movement and poor muscle growth and later diagnosed with scoliosis. Despite many surgeries to address these issues, Luca has never let his disability prevent him from doing the activities he loves including swimming, diving, skiing, and horseback riding.  After a leg surgery prevented him from continuing skateboarding, he was introduced to breakdancing. Using his upper body strength to create a unique style of dancing, “Lazylegz” was born. Since then, Luca has become a world-renowned break-dancer. In 2007, Luca created ILL-Abilities™, an international dance crew of differently-abled dancers. Their goal is to show the world that as long as you are positive, creative, and willing to adapt to any situation, anything is possible. Together, they perform all over the world, spreading the message “No Excuses, No Limits.” Luca has appeared on the Ellen DeGeneres Show, America’s Got Talent, and So You Think You Can Dance Canada as the world’s first and only dancer with a disability to make it into Finals Week.

According to grant writer, Suzanne Lissy, “Luca embodies the message we bring to our kids through the Understanding our Different Abilities program; that we are all unique and different and that is what makes us the same.”

Check out coverage of Luca’s visit in the Needham Times and on Luca’s YouTube channel.

A one-man show, written and performed by actor Steve Kidd, was performed for 406 students in eighth grade at the Pollard Middle School. The play was originated by Steve following several summers of work at a camp for HIV-positive children. He wrote the play in an effort to inspire young people to do public service through telling the stories of some of these children and families. He combines actual stories of children living with HIV/AIDs with excerpts from Ursala Le Guin’s short story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.”

The performance ties into the students’ unit on short stories (which includes “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”). It also connects with the eighth-grade Community Service Learning program. Steve told the students about how he first volunteered to work at the HIV/AIDs camp mostly because he did not have anything else to do for a summer and how it has enriched his life more than anything else he has done in his career. One of the reasons that he created this program was to encourage public service. The students recently had their introduction to the CSL program and “Sigh/Omelas” will inspire them to understand their ability to make a positive impact, just at the time when they will be choosing their projects.

James Rojas, an activist, artist, and urban planner, came to Broadmeadow School for a week-long art and design residency involving the entire Broadmeadow community. Rojas travels the world engaging ordinary people, young and old, in the planning process through “build it” workshops, translating city planning into activities that are visual, tactile, and playful—the language of how we actually experience the world.

Rojas brought these workshops to Broadmeadow students through their art classes. He presented the students with thousands of intriguing found objects and then engaged them to build their favorite place in their community. He got them thinking, building, and creating, individually and then collaboratively. After building, each student shared his or her ideas. During the residency, photographer Tiziana Rozzo documented students’ work, creating a slide show and photo exhibit. The exhibit was presented at a reception with town officials at Needham Town Hall on March 24th.

Students in grades 1 to 5 at all Needham public elementary schools were exposed to history through performance thanks to a Small Grant awarded by NEF during its spring 2013 grant cycle. The program, “Sheryl Faye Presents Historical Women,” served as the kick-off event for the town-wide Understanding Our Different Abilities program, which is coordinated by each school’s PTC. This fall, each elementary school had two sessions of the performance followed by a question-and-answer period with the performance artist.

Local actress Sheryl Faye presented a one-woman play that portrayed moments from Helen Keller’s childhood and young adulthood and her struggles to overcome obstacles and learn to communicate. Faye stayed in character for the 35-minute play in which she revealed the life of this historical woman who was deaf and blind yet achieved success. “Sheryl Faye showed the students that people such as Helen Keller who live with a disability are really not disabled but differently abled, and this is the same message as our program,” said Suzanne Lissy, chair of Understanding Our Different Abilities and an NEF board member. “Faye also explained to the kids that if you see someone who is differently abled not to be scared or to stare but to talk to them and ask questions if you have any.”

Newbery Medal–winning author Grace Lin presented her seminar, How a Book Is Made, to the first- and second-graders at Mitchell Elementary School. She also read an excerpt of her book The Ugly Vegetables to the kindergarten classes.

Lin provided the students with insight into the steps of how a book is made. She began by showing them her “personal idea book” where she jots down ideas and words, which then become the inspiration for her stories. Through her interactive presentation, she demonstrated the many steps in publishing an illustrated picture book. Lin also read an excerpt from her junior novel Year of the Dog to teach the children about the Chinese zodiac and the traits associated with each year. She ended the program with a “draw-along,” teaching the students how to draw a dragon or a dog.

The engaging program walked the students through the complete process from story ideas to illustrations to the published work, all while infusing insight into Chinese culture. NEF grant writer Patty Deroian said, “Ms. Lin presents a fantastic program combining writing and diversity in a way that really connects with the students.”

With help from an NEF grant, the Hillside Family Engineering Extravaganza welcomed nearly 300 parents and children on a recent Saturday morning to solve engineering design challenges together. Activities included designing REAL Angry birds (working catapults) and windmill blades, making bubble wands, and saving Humpty Dumpty by building contraptions to protect a real egg from a real fall. Engineers from around Needham joined the Extravaganza to demonstrate projects as did Olin College students and the Needham High School robotics teams HackHers and T-10. Robots from MIT and a 3-D printer from Olin were also popular with children and parents alike.

It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s a … 3-D Printer!

Students in the robotics club at Needham High School unboxed a new 3-D printer, funded by a grant from NEF, to be used by the club and soon in the school’s new robotics class. Using the printer, students will be challenged to design 3-D objects and write the necessary computer code, which the printer reads and turns into the corresponding 3-D plastic models. What was the sample design on that first day? The NEF logo, of course!