Thank You!

With our trip to Boston just a day away, we wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of you who made this opportunity a possibility for our students. Through your generous support we raised $3,700 to aid students in need of financial assistance. We also wanted to update you on some exciting new developments for the trip:

Our students will have lunch on Friday with 2 professors and fifteen current students who are interested in Teach For America. Among these fifteen students will be the President of the Harvard Black Students Association.

One of Matt’s professors from college secured the donation of forty-five historical fiction novels that our students have been reading. Students were able to choose from Johnny Tremain, My brother Sam is dead, and the Witch of Blackbird pond.

This trip will not only expose our students to some of the most important sites in American history; it will help to raise their personal expectations about their academic future.

We are leaving for Boston tomorrow evening and will periodically update the following link with pictures from our trip.

http://picasaweb.google.com/dougherty.noah

Thank you again for your support.

Matt and Noah

P.S. Look out for a letter and picture from our students in the next couple weeks.

Itinerary

Purpose of the Trip:
This trip will be both educational and inspirational. On the instructional side, it correlates with the U.S. History standards being taught in the first months of school. Students will walk the Freedom Trail (including Paul Revere’s House, the Old North Church, the site of the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, etc), visit Salem, where the famous Witch Trials took place, and the battlefields of Lexington and Concord. In addition, students will tour the campus of Harvard College and meet with current students and professors. Our goal is to make sure all 8th Graders realize what they can achieve if they work hard. This supports the 8th Grade Team’s theme this year that our students are the College Class of 2017!

Tentative Itinerary:

Thursday, October 30:
9:30pm: Students arrive at Shugart
10:00pm: Bus departs

Friday, October 31:
7am: Arrive in Cambridge
8am: Campus tour with current students. Visit the historical sites in Cambridge, MA.
12noon: Lunch in Eliot House dining hall with the prospective Teach For America corps members from Harvard College
2:00pm: Depart for hotel in Bedford
3:00pm: Downtime at hotel
6:00pm: Depart for Salem. Halloween in Salem! “Legacy of the Hanging Judge” Show, a reenactment of the Salem Witch Trials
10:00pm: Return to hotel in Bedford

Saturday, November 1:
8:30am: Breakfast at hotel, provided
9:00am: Bus departs from Bedford
10:00am – 1:00pm: Walking the Freedom Trail
1:00pm: Lunch in downtown Boston
2:00pm: Tour of the Massachusetts State House
6:00pm: Dinner discussion with Professor from Harvard’s African and African American Studies Department TBA.
8:00pm: Show! Sander’s Theatre at Harvard University. TBA
10:30pm: Return to hotel in Bedford

Sunday, November 2:
10:00am: Buses depart for Lexington and Concord
10:30am: Tour of the battle fields and American Revolution Museum
12:30pm: Lunch on the Green
1:30pm: Buses depart for home
10:00pm: Buses arrive back at Shugart