President Joe Biden nominates Kamilah Forbes, Carver ‘s Child of America 2020 honoree, to the National Council on the Arts

Click here or on the image to see Kamilah Forbes address Carver kids in our Celebrating Courage video last Thursday.

Here’s the White House press release about the nomination.

Kamilah Forbes is an esteemed award-winning director and producer for theater and television who currently serves as the Executive Producer at the world-famous Apollo Theater. Forbes is noted for having a strong commitment to the development of creative works by, for, and about the Hip-Hop generation. In addition to her work at the Apollo, Forbes’ directing credits include By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, written by two-time Pulitzer prize-winning writer Lynn Nottage; The Blood Quilt, written by Katori Hall; and Sunset Baby, by MacArthur Genius recipient Dominique Morisseau. She has also worked as associate director on the Tony Award-winning A Raisin in the Sun, and Emmy Award-winning “The Wiz Live” for NBC. Other Broadway credits include The Mountaintop and Stick Fly. 

Forbes’ most recent directorial work, “Between the World and Me” aired as a special event on HBO and HBO Max in November 2020. Her directorial work on “Between the World and Me” has brought her a host of acclaim and recognition, including a nomination for Best Direction for an NAACP Image Award and a Critics Choice Award nomination. 

Throughout her career, Forbes has won numerous awards for both directing and producing, including the 2019 NBTF Larry Leon Hamlin Producer Award, a Root 100 Award, an NAACP Image Award, a Helen Hayes and Barrymore Award, and an Audelco. Forbes’ recent projects include directing the sold-out world premiere, tour, and theatrical adaption of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ New York Times best-selling novel Between the World and Me, which premiered at the Apollo Theater in 2018 and returned for encore performances in 2019. In addition to her work at the Apollo Theater, Forbes is set to direct the Broadway premiere of Soul Train alongside producer Questlove, playwright Dominique Morisseau, and choreographer Camille A. Brown.  

Connecticut Summer FREE at the Museum!

It’s time to explore!

Beginning today, until September 6th, Connecticut children age 18 and under plus one accompanying adult can visit participating museums free of charge through the Connecticut Summer at the Museum program.

The program is part of Governor Lamont’s larger plan to use recovery funds to provide students and families with engaging summer enrichment and learning experiences in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

From art and children's museums and historical sites to zoos, aquariums, and science centers, below is a list organized by county of those great destinations participating in #CTSummerMuseums:

Fairfield County; Hartford County; Litchfield County; Middlesex County; New Haven County; New London County; Tolland County; Windham County.

Make sure you check each museum for online advance ticketing and reservations, as they may be required.

Fairfield County

• Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield

• Bruce Museum, Greenwich

• Connecticut's Beardsley Zoo, Bridgeport

• Danbury Museum & Historical Society, Danbury

• Discovery Museum, Bridgeport

• EverWonder Children's Museum, Newtown

• Fairfield Museum & History Center, Fairfield

• Greenwich Historical Society, Cos Cob

• Keeler Tavern Museum & History Center, Ridgefield

• Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum, Norwalk

• Mather Homestead, Darien

• Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk, Norwalk

• MoCA, Westport

• Shelton History Center, Shelton

• Stepping Stones Museum for Children, Norwalk

In case you missed it, here is our Celebrating Courage video

Click on the image above to go to the video and also the gala sponsor videos in the COURAGE homepage

Schools adjourned for the year and our summer learning programs get underway next week as we celebrate the courage that saw us through the many challenges of the pandemic.

Looking back at it all, the 2020 school year felt like it lasted a decade. As we toggled among virtual, hybrid, and in-person instruction, as students set foot back in school, we are preparing for the challenges and opportunities in the coming year.

As America downshifts into a much-needed holiday break this weekend and resets for the summer, this Celebrating Courage video (including two music videos!) offers a brief moment of reflection on the surreal school year that just concluded.

Enjoy the Celebrating Courage video we all begin a rejuvenating July 4th holiday!

Free Classes and High School Art Competition at The Norwalk Art Space!

We are helping to spread the word of the upcoming free classes at The Norwalk Art Space!

There are a few spots still available for 13 to 18-year-olds (details below). Young artists can go here for more information and register.

They are also having an art competition for the same age group with prizes and opportunities to showcase their work around Norwalk.

Creativity for Change
Tuesdays | July 6, 13 | 3:30-6:30 pm | 2 weeks with Resident Artist Lorena SferslazzaFree and open to high school age students (13 - 18); up to 10 spots; registration required 

How do you make works of art that express YOU and inspire change? Join Resident Artist and Museum Educator Lorena Sferlazza for this interactive, two-part workshop series to ignite your creativity, learn from artists, and grow in the community. You will explore works of art on view in the Norwalk Art Space’s opening exhibition through close-looking, sketching, and mindfulness activities. Then, you’ll move to the studio space to create paintings, drawings, collages, and more that reflect who we are and the community we’d like to build. Registration required for up to 10 available spots; materials provided onsite.

Meaningful Still-life

Fridays | July 9 - August 6, 2021 | 11:00 - 1:00pm | 5 weeks with Resident Artist Emily Teall

Free and open to high school age students (13 - 18); up to 10 spots; registration required 

Students will create a still life from symbolic, narrative, nostalgic, or otherwise significant objects. Students are welcome to bring objects from home or to use those that will be provided. We will begin with realism but students will be encouraged to emphasize concepts and meaning through color, detail, and strategic placements. Students will experiment with a broad range of drawing materials and techniques.

For more information, [please contact Duvian Montoya, Artistic and Educational Director, The Norwalk Art Space.

Resident artists and fellows in the renovated building now housing The Norwalk Art Space. Read more about it my clicking on this im age!

Columbus Camp Parent Orientation via Zoom this Wednesday, 6/30, at 5:30 or 6:30 PM

Columbus Camp Directors Tremain Gilmore and Cherae Kingwood invite you to join them this Wednesday, 6/30, to learn about all the wonderful experiences they have prepared for your children this summer.  

Click here to join the 5:30 Zoom session.

Click here to join the 6:30 Zoom session.

Carver Center Summer Camp Parent Orientation Zoom-Meeting, Wednesday, June 30

Email our Carver Center Camp Director Waid Ramsubhag here to RSVP for either the 4 PM or 5 PM meeting you would like to participate in on Wednesday, June 30th.

This summer camp orientation meeting invitation is only for parents of youth attending the Carver Center Summer Camp.

Click here to join the 4 PM Zoom meeting:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83731428651?pwd=WU5oUzl2TzhpUXV4VGRSU2piblRSZz09

Here is the Zoom link for the 5 PM meeting:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86506321747?pwd=ZG5raXNHUTAzbUJrOWg3cHRXby9GQT09

Click on the image below to join us this evening at 7PM for our free gala streamed live!

Our 7th Annual Golf Classic was the best ever!

The pandemic receded just in time to give us a great day for fellowship and golf this past Monday.

The weather, the course, the club’s pros, Diageo’s refreshing drinks throughout the day, and the sumptuous lunch and dinner made our 7th annual golf event a day to remember. And we are forever thankful.

Together, more than 100 players, sponsors, and many other donors raised $113,000 for Carver kids.

The past 15 or so months changed the world, but not our mission. Carver kids are stepping out into the new world that awaits them.

It could be said that golf is a metaphor for the challenges and opportunities our students face. Like golf, school and life can be deceptively simple and endlessly complicated. School and career satisfy the soul and can forever frustrate the intellect. Like golf, life can be at once rewarding and frustratingly challenging. Balls take good and bad bounces. No other game combines the wonder of nature with the discipline needed for life in such carefully planned ways. Success depends less on strength of body than upon strength of mind and character.

All of that may not have been on our minds during our golf outing, but the wonderful support we received via golf is most appropriate!

Please enjoy a few of the images of our day of golf in the slideshow below. All of the images we captured are here in our Facebook album.

Carver Staff Spotlight: Joe Giandurco

Joe Giandurco (“Mr. G to his students) is Carver’s longtime Lead Program Coordinator for our Ponus Ridge Middle School PRIDE after-school program.

PRIDE is the acronym for Perseverance, Respect, Intelligence, Diversity, Excellence. Joe also manages the Carver summer transition program for incoming 6th graders.

Ponus Ridge was one of the initial schools into which Carver expanded its programs many years ago.

In all, five certified teachers and three paraprofessionals deliver the PRIDE after-school program with amazing results. Joe and his team provide students with homework completion support, Common Core skill development, and all manner of enrichment choices such as robotics, science and engineering hands-on projects, cooking, and exciting encounters that only the Maritime Aquarium can provide.

Born and raised in Norwalk, Joe has been teaching for some 20 years at Ponus Ridge Middle School. He is social studies and science teacher and a NEST Special Education Co-Teacher. Joe successfully communicates with colleagues from various disciplines and with parents to ensure student success.

Not surprisingly, Joe has the trust of his colleagues as Vice President of the Norwalk Federation of Teachers for the past three years.

We enjoy seeing Joe and his wife Shannon at Carver events all through the year.

Joe and his students capture the attention of the media from time to time.

Such as the time Joe encouraged a student to assemble a team of students to enter the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow STEM contest. The team became one of two winners from Connecticut, earning $15,000 worth of Samsung technology and supplies for Ponus Ridge. “’To see Emerard lay out his vision and watch his team run with it, for me, this is why I wanted to become a teacher,’ Giandurco said.”

From left to right: Dr. Fred Pierre-Louis, Ponus Ridge science teacher; Ponus Ridge 7th graders Dalvin Duncan, Jonathan Joseph and Shouri Akarapu; and Joe Giandurco, coordinator of Ponus PRIDE program.

Another time (and here), Joe helped his students compete in the FIRST Lego League (FLL) annual robotics competition with great success. The Ponus Ridge team built a robot named Carver Motors, which contains four motors and sensors. The Lego Legends team of Ponus Ridge 7th graders won first prize at the 3rd annual Backyard Blizzard robotics competition in Greenwich.

Great teachers like Joe have a gift, a special quality we revere. He never gives up on any student. As we all try to build an ennobled world of dignity for all, nowhere is the urgency of not giving up on any human being greater than in education.

Joe starts wherever he can with his students. He sees a need, so he threads a needle, and he ties a knot in his thread. He finds one place in the cloth through which to take one stitch, one simple stitch, nothing fancy, just one that’s strong and true. The knot will anchor his thread. Once that’s done, he takes one more stitch — teaches someone robotics, for example, no matter how long that takes. Or he encourages a student to enter his idea into a national contest.

The examples through the years are countless, and all of them life-changing for Joe’s students.  For Carver, Joe helped us tie one of our first true knots at Ponus Ridge, and today Carver’s quilt of school programs, tied together through the years, stretches across Norwalk.

Naramake 5th graders share thoughtful thank-you cards with Carver staff

Naramake students in Carver’s 5th Grade Scholars program surprised Carver staff with heartwarming thank-you cards. We can’t wait to follow them on their journey to middle school!