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Community Corner

Fabulous Family Festival at Stanwich

“This festival is a wonderful community building tradition,” Paul Geise, Head of School, said during Stanwich School’s fifth annual Family Festival. “This is the heart of the true Stanwich spirit.”

On a warm fall afternoon, members of the Stanwich community came together at the school’s Upper School campus to participate in carnival games for the Family Festival, a fundraiser for Project Blessing.

A 10-year project in a rural Rwandan community, Project Blessing is the main community service fundraising effort of the school’s upper grades. For the past six years, Stanwich students have raised funds to create water, waste management and irrigation systems, as well as for the construction of a school for the community. Proceeds from the Festival’s ticket sales totaled $3,682 that will go toward this year’s fundraising effort, according to Stanwich Upper School science teacher, Shaun Fletcher. The Stanwich community has raised more than $60,000 since the project’s inception. The school will officially open in January.

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Fletcher began Project Blessing after spending three weeks in Cyabatanzi, a place where villagers had to walk more than an hour down a mountain to a well before carrying a bucket of water back to their home and children had to walk two hours to school. Fletcher met with the leaders of the village on his maiden voyage, and discussed plans to create a 10-year project to improve conditions within the village. Fletcher has gotten the entire Stanwich community involved in the initiative, and even brings a group Stanwich students and alumni with him on a two-week journey to Cyabatanzi each summer since his initial trip.

Students in Stanwich’s Upper School hosted Friday afternoon’s event. The older students created each of the 25 booths to provide a fun afternoon for the school’s younger students in grades Pre-K to 6. Old-fashioned games, such as Water Balloon Smash, Hit the Target, Ping Pong Ball Accuracy, and Decorate a Pumpkin entertained the students for the afternoon.

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