A few days ago, we wrote about the New Canaan Community Foundation Volunteer Awards ceremony on October 19th in the New Canaan Town Hall. At that event, our application presenting Avery Cotton as our candidate for an award was read aloud. Here is what the Carver community said about our good friend, Avery!

Avery Cotton is an absolute rockstar volunteer who runs insightful, detailed bird watching programs for our students. At first glance, bird watching may seem an unlikely supplement to an educational organization. But still, Avery comes to us with binoculars, guidebooks, and presentations to share his love for conservation with many children... And without fail, he engages entire classrooms. If you have ever spent time in elementary or middle school spaces, you understand the magnitude of that accomplishment. We cannot overstate how grateful we are for Avery. He is a young volunteer who is rare in his dedication and gifted in his instructive skills.

Our teachers say they don’t believe Avery is still a high school student. He is patient and gentle with even the most boisterous elementary schoolers. He can meet them at their level and introduce them to bird watching in an accessible way. As many of our students don't have the opportunity to take afternoon walks through land trusts or conservation spaces, Avery shows them how to identify urban and suburban species. He enacts a kind of magic. Suddenly, a chickadee is a delight, a blue jay a revelation.

What Avery does is genuinely indispensable for our students. As the Carver endeavors to nurture academic excellence in our students, we also endeavor to provide them supplemental enrichment in equal measure. Enrichments allow our students to discover passions, stretch their creative legs, and bolster their enjoyment of academic spaces. Avery’s bird watching classes do all this and provide an additional edge: they inspire our kids to get outside. As our world becomes increasingly digital and attention spans increasingly shorter, Avery encourages our students to slow down, breathe, and notice. 

You can read more about the last time Avery volunteered with us here.

Avery is already known as a volunteer in New Canaan for his service to the New Canaan Land Trust. We can only hope that we beat them to the nomination! He embodies the spirit of a Youth MVP, and we are privileged to have him as a Carver volunteer.