EnglishHaitian CreoleSpanish

How PLAY improves the cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being of Carver children

By volunteer student Carver blogger, Julia Berg

A small group of students chases after each other in a game resembling tag, dodging their peers’ playing other games as they run around the gym.

Occasionally, they playfully hide behind their friends for a moment before they make a run for it. They dart by a pair of students passing a soccer ball to each other.

The soccer players try to improve by practicing passing and receiving passes – the pair cheer when both use control to pass the ball smoothly and quickly several times in a row.

One of the students accidentally catches the soccer ball in midair, looks up, and calls out to his partner “Look! I caught it!”. He passes it a few more times when he instinctively catches the ball again. Happily surprised by the catch, he pauses to process his instinctive reaction before resuming the game. Many catches later, the ball slips away when he reaches out for it, but he can secure it in his grasp before it touches the floor. He smiles widely and walks back to his position, asking his partner “What’s happening today?” out of disbelief and setting down the ball for another pass.

Meanwhile, in another corner of the gym, a couple of students use their rackets to volley a ball with their counselor.

They playfully joke around, encouraging each other when they maintain a good volley and giggling when the ball inevitably falls.

Volunteer Julia Berg tells us lively stories about our summer and after-school students at the Carver Community Center.

See more of her stories here.

19-year-old Amanda Mammana from Trumbull inspired the judges and audience on "America's Got Talent" - and the Carver community, too!

During her audition, Amanda Mammana told the “America’s Got Talent” judges that she had a stutter. Part of what motivated her to pursue music is that she doesn't stutter when she sings. She is set to return to the national stage by performing an original song at halftime during the Dolphins vs Vikings game on Oct. 16. She will perform her song, "Worth Fighting For." "It’s about fighting for what you believe in and fighting for your dreams," Mammana said.

Julia Berg reports on what learning looks like at the Carver Community Center

By Julia Berg

A student flips his packet over and examines the array of dots at the top of the page before tackling the multiplication as his friend looks on. Moving through the steps as he completes each problem, he finds that he is now able to do them with a little more ease. Meanwhile, a couple of students finish their own homework while the rest of the students read books that they chose from the bookshelf or retrieved from their backpacks.

At one table, two students are immersed in their graphic novels. One reveals that he is reading Cat Kid Comic Club #1, sharing that he has finished a couple of other series by the same author. He explains to me that he loves reading graphic novels because the illustrations add to the humor, which make the books more fun to read. He quickly flips a couple pages back to point to a panel and provides context before reading the dialogue aloud, making himself giggle. He retells all the events that occur after, occasionally describing the funniest parts of the characters’ amusing behavior or another aspect of the story.

He specifically points out a moment that he finds intriguing – the moment when the students in the story struggle to create comics because of their lack of confidence in their skills. The teacher responds by telling the students that they are afraid to fail so they didn’t try. They announce that the assignment for tonight is to fail.

Our Carver student pauses for a second to ponder whether or not he is too afraid of making mistakes and concludes that he has been learning from his mistakes before he continues retelling the story to me.

Volunteer Julia Berg tells us lively stories about our summer and after-school students at the Carver Community Center. See more of her stories here.

We are preparing our students for a rapidly changing work force

The employment landscape is undergoing a sustained, yet seismic, shift. The current environment calls for a renewed focus on career readiness. One that approaches the connection between the classroom and the workplace with fresh eyes.

The world of work is buffeted by automation, artificial intelligence, globalization, and, of course, the pandemic. Over the past decade, the average U.S. job has seen 30 percent of its skills change — and the pace of change is only accelerating. What do we need to do to make sure that our graduates can successfully make the transition from classroom to college and/or career?

Here’s what we are doing and focusing on this year:

  • Paid internships for 11th and 12 graders.

  • Full-time (daytime and after-school) Future Readiness Coordinators in Norwalk and Brien McMahon High Schools devoted to the success of Carver students

  • Preparation for students to understand that they can no longer rely on their college degree to accurately signal their fitness for a job.

  • Integrating career education into the after-school curriculum, connecting students with career networks, and ensuring equitable access to internships and apprenticeships.

Carver's culture runs on mercy, hope, and goodness

Today’s young people are reckoning with a harsh social-political climate. Some of our students are also grieving the loss of their parents or guardians since the onset of the pandemic. It can be difficult to be hopeful during these times and to find healing, joy, and even mercy. 

Carver programs provide students with opportunities to feel safe and supported while engaging in critical thinking and diverse thought. Our programs also offer mercy — a word deceptive in its seeming softness, for beneath its surface lurks a dark core: the very concept of mercy only exists because of and as a counterpoint to the world’s capacity for cruelty. We work hard to make sure our support reaches out and reaches out and reaches out. We always give our young people another chance, another day, over and over and over.

Framing “learning loss” caused by the pandemic, for example, can be paralyzing, demoralizing, and demotivating. Instead of “learning loss,” we embrace a framing of mastery. Instead of disengaging from school because some are so far behind, we help our students focus on making learning fun and helping them to believe achievement is attainable no matter how far they must go. Carver students are setting goals, and they are planning on how they are going to reach them. They are learning, and then they are showing evidence of what they’ve learned. That informs what they do next. That creates a successful cycle of positivity.

Carver has the time and resources to offer an agile educational experience for our students designed to innovate, bend, and stretch to meet the needs of every student, including our most complex learners. Examining data helps us to identify which students are not getting what they need. We are constantly inventorying community-based learning opportunities and resources, as well as the extent to which they are accessible to our students and families. 

A great truth, attributed to Emily Dickinson, is that “hope inspires the good to reveal itself.” Gravity and sadness yank us down, and hope and mercy give us a nudge to help one another get back up. Carver’s tagline is “Building Lifetime Achievers.” This entire website is replete with technical writing about project-based and hands-on learning, STEM education, workforce development, and so on. But what truly makes the Carver culture as nurturing and joyful as it is, are much bigger words like mercy, hope, and goodness.

Rowayton United Methodist Church congregation supports the hard work and promise of Carver students

Deborah “Deb” Easton from the Rowayton United Methodist Church delivered donated school supplies to the Carver Community Center that her church community had gathered for our students. This generous gift will help prepare our students for a successful school year.

We are deeply grateful to the Rowayton United Methodist Church congregation for helping to give our youth the confidence they need to start the new school year off strong!

All generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present. We are indebted to one another, and this debt is a kind of faith. We believe in each other, and in so doing, we believe in the value and promise of each Carver young person.

See the video! Mo's Summer Run 2022

Mo’s Summer Run is a community-based youth-driven basketball program. The program uses the Richard Whitcomb Gymnasium and the outdoor courts at the Carver Community Center at 7 Academy Street. Mo’s Summer Run began in 2009. Players who honed their skills at Carver and then went on to high school, collegiate, and, in some cases, professional careers, showed up on Friday nights to flaunt their talents on the court in epic games. Mo’s Summer Run has been reported about by The Hour here and here (among other stories). The goal is to give youth a safe environment during the summer evening hours to learn the basics of basketball, teamwork, and leadership skills. Mo’s Summer Run also serves to help keep youth engaged in positive and rewarding activities.

From The Hour:

The open gym borrows its name from Maurice “Mo” Tomlin, a beloved Brien McMahon basketball player and coach and Carver Center athletic director who died suddenly at age 42 in 2015. Tremain Gilmore, a friend and colleague of Tomlin’s sought to immortalize his friend at Carver and changed the name of the program after Tomlin’s passing.

…After drills on Mondays and Wednesdays, until 10 p.m., high school players own the court. But on Fridays, those same stars of high school squads from Norwalk and nearby cities like Stamford and Bridgeport must prove their worth.

“I tell the high school guys they can play, but it all depends on your level,” said Gilmore, or Gil, as he is known at Carver.

“It’s the older guys’ night to get more out of their run. The younger guys have to work their way up,” said Evan Kelley, 25, a Carver alum who played four years of college ball at Sacred Heart University and has played professionally overseas.

The style of play at Carver on Friday is scrappy. In the absence of a referee, players call their own fouls and dispute among themselves out-of-bounds calls and travels. Younger players thrown into the mix too soon could have their weaknesses easily exposed by the older, stronger, more savvy veterans.

Most players who have worked their way into the Friday night circuit recall coming as kids and battling against bigger, better guys. It’s something of a rite of passage at Carver.

“I used to come every day when I was younger. All the older Carver kids were better,” said Saikwon Williams, a senior forward at Brien McMahon and one of only a handful of high school players on the court that night. “But then I got better and stronger.”

Williams, now 6 feet 5 inches tall, looks not at all out of place in the pickup games. The 17-year-old has become a force on the Carver court, but he remembers well looking up to players like Gardener and Kelley.

“I think it made me want to be better,” Williams said from the baseline, where, waiting for his next turn to play, he dribbled a ball and, when the action moved to the far side of the court, snuck back on to get in a shot or two.

Because the open gyms attract players from various high schools from across much of Fairfield County, there is sometimes competitive tension. Current and former rivals often face off in the sweaty gymnasium.

“Some people take certain games more personal than others,” said Gardener, who, with Kelley, was conserving energy for a Saturday tournament in Stamford and remained on the sideline for the duration of the run.

But, Gilmore is quick to point out that in nine years, the open gym has gone off without incident and the competition remains friendly. For many, such as Singleton-Bates, the open gyms are like a reunion, where she sees people with whom she grew up with and went to high school. For others, the Carver’s atmosphere has a healing effect.

“Some people see it as therapy,” said Gilmore, works as Caver’s teen center manager and a security guard at Norwalk High School.

Ocean Woods, 20, said he comes primarily for fun, but also to play against the city’s top players.

“This is the best competition in Norwalk,” said Woods, a former Norwalk High School basketball player. “Everybody knows that the ballers come to the Carver to ball.”

Meet the 17 UN "Young Leaders" Change-Makers

Every two years, this United Nations flagship Young Leaders initiative recognizes 17 young change-makers who are leading efforts to combat the world’s most pressing issues and whose leadership is catalyzing the achievement of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. Following an open call for applications earlier this year, which resulted in more than 5,400 applications from over 190 countries, this next group of Young Leaders hail from all corners of the world and work across all pillars of the UN.