Yesterday I received a request from Kaitlyn, third from the left in the above photo. She and the others, including one on the phone are all part of a local team of 5th and 6th graders named the Bellingham Destination Imagination.
From Kaitlyn’s email: Hello Mr. Rice! My name is Kaitlyn McMahon. I am part of a 5th and 6th grade team called Bellingham Destination Imagination. We had a project where we collected donations to help the homeless. We collected for the Medway House homeless shelter. Tomorrow we are bringing all of our donations to the Medway House. Our team was wondering if you could take a picture of our team with the donations to encourage people to donate to the shelter. Thank you for your time.
How could I say no? They had two car loads of items for the Medway House, who was very appreciate to receive these donations. Now, if you would like more info on how to donate to this great organization, as Kaitlyn has encouraged all of us to do, you can reach out to Maribeth Boyd at the Medway House at Marib@smoc.org.
I also asked Kaitlyn to give me more information about her team. My favorite part is “no adult interference” line – as a Dad of two young adults myself, I think those three words are great. Kids will change the world. I was there to document, parents were there to drive, but this was the kids project. They spoke with the representative, unloaded the cars and were running the show. They should be very proud of themselves, I hope to hear more great things from the group. Thank you to the team for being an example of how to give back to the community.
More from Kaitlyn: Our team’s goal was to raise $200 worth of donations, but we ended up raising roughly over $500 worth of donations for the Medway House. Some details about our project: Our Destination Imagination team chose this service community project because we wanted to help the people in need during Covid-19. We worked together virtually and weekly. What is very important about Destination Imagination, is that there is no adult interference. It was all up to the 5th and 6th grades to work together as a team, collect donations, and to stay on track.
Team members names are:
Nathan Phillip
JJ Piselli
Chris Weismoore
Aivah Harris
Dylan Ormberg
Kaitlyn McMahon
Team managers are:
Joan Ormberg
Shawn Harris
tr/trp
