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Thank you for being such an important part of the Carver story. We're ready for 2023!

Your fantastic generosity has ensured that Carver kids can embrace their dreams and share with the world their joyful voices, beaming faces, and hope for the future. Thanks to your support, the Carver community will continue to instill a lifelong passion for learning in all our young people. 

We feel extra grateful as we celebrate the start of a new year. Each of your gifts helps over 2,500 Carver students reach their fullest potential, both in school and in life. With heartfelt thanks and best wishes for 2023!

As 2022 comes to a close and a new year beckons, we sing, "GOOD JOB!"

As 2022 comes to a close and a new year beckons, we are presented with an opportunity to reflect on the past twelve months. Explore new aspirations. And set intentions for the year to come. Let us indulge this truth by sharing a music video of Carver alumnus Gabi Pierre-Louis singing Alicia Keys's song "Good Job."

This music video features pianist Steve Sasloe, the musical director for Jose Feliciano. What you're hearing in this recording is one single take, no overdubs, no tuning, and no backing vocals—just raw talent delivered with a lot of love from the heart. With just as much love, we continue to sing “Good Job” to the entire Carver community as we prepare for the New Year.

Best friends at Carver read aloud about how a dog becomes a best big sister

By Julia Berg

Before the holiday school break, Ze and Sierra read the book Elana’s Ears by Gloria Roth Lowell together to fulfill Sierra’s reading homework.

They take turns reading paragraphs of the story of a young deaf girl and her dog, Ze reading in a silly voice, and Sierra reading normally.

Occasionally Sierra reads the dialog and interjections in the illustrations, including trying her best to imitate a dog’s bark. A few times during their reading, they point to the illustrated characters and declare that it is one of them, sparking a discussion on which character in the illustration both are as well as which scenes they relate to, such as Elana reading under her covers.

Although the book’s length adds to the challenge, Sierra and Ze remain engaged in the journey of deafness through the perspective of Lacey, the dog, giggling and awwing at moments throughout the story and especially enjoying the sweet relationship that has developed between Elana and Lacey by the end.

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.

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The holiday season continues to flourish at 7 Academy Street with the annual Holiday Grab-And-Go.

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Pictured: Director of Elementary Based Programs, Tricia Massucco (left) and Manager of High School & Middle School Programs, Mary Martini (right).

Since 10 a.m. this morning, our holiday dynamos, Mary & Tricia, have been handing out personalized gift bags to Carver families. This marks the third annual Holiday Grab-And-Go, a gift-giving initiative developed during the pandemic to bring cheer to the Carver community when the Holiday Party was on hold. What began as a socially distanced solution has become an event in its own right; 75 families will be streaming in and out of the Carver Center today to pick up their gifts!

The gifts in question were generously donated by Toys for Tots, St. Luke’s Church, and the Westport Police Department. From newborns to 13-year-olds, Carver kids are receiving toys picked for their age and interest.

Volunteers from St. Luke’s School and Brien McMahon High School have joined Tricia and Mary in spreading the holiday cheer. As the afternoon rolls on, all hands are on deck to put gifts under trees and smiles on faces!

Pictured: Brien McMahon High School Volunteers and Future Readiness Coordinator, Rayshonda Mitchell. Left to right: Doulsina Sandoval, Darlah Lapommeray, Ashley Fernandez, Rayshonda Mitchell, Isabel Muñoz, Cynthia Sainrilus.

New Canaan High School Service League of Boys bring holiday cheer to Carver kids!

New Canaan's SLOBs visit Carver youth periodically to bring good fun and cheer.  Here they are decorating cookies with our CASPER youth at the Carver Community Center.

Founded in 2004, the New Canaan High School Service League of Boys (SLOBs) is a student/parent-run organization that fosters the parent-son relationship in a philanthropic organization committed to community service, leadership development, and education. It is an organization of parents and sons who join together in service and educational endeavors to foster community responsibility and strengthen the parent-son relationship.

Their mission is "for parents and sons to initiate and promote educational and charitable endeavors that foster community responsibility and leadership as well as strengthen the parent-son relationship."  

They serve approximately 30 philanthropic organizations with over 65 different projects. We are grateful that Carver is among their charitable commitments! 

BIC donates more than 1,000 pens to EJ's H.E.A.R.T and to Carver kids

While EJ’s H.E.A.R.T Inc. (Helping Educate Adolescents Reach True Success) is an independent charity, it is also at the heart of the Carver community. Its co-founder, Tremain Gilmore, is Carver’s longtime Teen Center manager.

As you can see in the video below, Tremain and his wife and foundation co-founder, Fritzsa, are celebrities!

Another Carver hero is BIC. Carver afterschool students Alaysia Ashley, Fanendra Auvelus, Matthew Hazzard, Elijah Lesperance, Brook Nash, Anthony Delon, and others joined together recently to receive a vast BIC donation of pens. A portion of this generous in-kind donation benefits Carver’s afterschool programming at the Carver Community Center, and the donation balance was distributed to other Norwalk youth by EJ’s H.E.A.R.T.

Carver’s beloved Tremain and Fritzsa Gilmore appeared on the Ellen Show with guest host Tiffany Haddish and regular cohost Stephen Laurel "tWitch" Boss.

The finale of Ellen DeGeneres' daytime talk series aired on May 26. Ellen DeGeneres pulled out all the celebrity stops for the final episodes of her daytime talk series.

Who better to invite to the show than Fritzsa and Gil?! How did the Ellen Show find our Norwalk heroes?

The Carver community enthusiastically nominated them.

With the invention of its Cristal® pen in 1950, BIC democratized handwriting in classrooms on a global scale. For the first time in history, an affordable, high-quality writing instrument was made accessible to every student in every corner of the world. Today, the spirit of this ingeniously simple product and the essential role writing instruments play in helping children receive a quality education is at the heart of the Company's Global Education Week initiative, which this year provided a product donation of 2.5 million pens and pencils to schools and others in need around the world.

BIC's Global Education Week, now in its fifth year, is an education-based charitable initiative that mobilizes the Company's global workforce to help improve learning conditions for students.

We are deeply grateful to Ka’Ran Housey and Jennifer Gilchrist for nominating us to receive over 1,000 pens.

We often write here about Tremain’s many roles and accomplishments and the couple’s EJ’s H.E.A.R.T. charity.

Thank you everyone for making the holidays special for Carver kids and their families!

Reese Gay, Keira McLean, Abby Friedman, and Melissa Pappas are members of the Service League Of Girls at Staples High School

We will be hosting our annual Carver Community Holiday Party this evening at the Carver Community Center, where there will be games, dancing, snacks, gifts, and a visit from Santa Claus!

At the party, all guests aged 13 and younger will receive a gift donated by the community.

In order to make this possible, volunteers from the National Charity League, Campbell Snacks, our Rowayton friends, members of the Service League Of Girls at Staples High School, and many other volunteers helped to wrap a mountain of gifts this year.

The 11th-grade class at St. Luke’s School will help to pass the gifts out at the party.

Carver has many friends who commit to help advance the Carver mission year after after — and we are grateful!

Holiday thanks and good cheer to everyone!

Rowayton Fire Department's Annual Toy Drive results in mountains of joy for Carver kids

Joan is the one wearing the Christmas Tree hat!

As they do each year, the Rowayton Fire Department collected a fire truck full of toys and other gifts for Carver kids.

This annual Santa Run was renamed THE MIKE BARBIS SANTA TOY DRIVE to honor the toy drive co-founder Mike Barbis, Rowayton’s late commissioner and longtime Carver friend and advocate. Among his many commitments to the Carver community, the Toy Drive was one of Mike’s favorites.

The other co-founder, Joan DeRegt, delivered all the donated gifts to the Carver Community Center today. These mountains of joy constituted this holiday season’s veritable “plum pudding stuffed with good things.” Rowayton’s volunteer fire department has been bringing great fun and wonder to Norwalk’s children for over 20 years.

Gifts include toys, sporting equipment, books, and gift cards. This is love in action, something Carver volunteer Joan is about all year.

The magic of this holiday season never ends, and its greatest gifts are friends like Joan and her generous team of Rowayton volunteers. The love these volunteers put into their giving keeps us all young and hopeful!