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Meet the Professionals: Finance professional, Matt Rebold, shares the value of persistence with NHS Carver students.

Our Meet the Professionals series puts students in the room with leaders and innovators across varied professions. On Tuesday, January 24th, our Carver students at Norwalk High School had the opportunity to sit down with Matthew I. Rebold, Managing Partner at Osprey Partners LLC.

Matt wasted no time in telling our students his keys to success. His 4 Life Points identify the most crucial values of an accomplished adult.

Matt Rebold (left), Managing Partner of Osprey Partners LLC since 1996, gives Norwalk High School students 4 “life points” to steward professional success.

Hard Work, Persistence, Flexibility, and Belief in Your Product. As an undergrad, Matt told our students, he had no idea what he would do for a career. What he did have, however, was the dedication to work hard and persevere through adversity. In his senior year at Duke University, Matt realized that this core drive was the foundation of a powerhouse entrepreneur. But effort alone does not win the day. Flexibility, Matt said, can be make-or-break at critical junctures. Things rarely work out perfectly, and Matt impressed upon our students the power of getting one’s foot in the door—even when it isn’t the path one had initially envisioned. Finally, belief in your product (whether that product is yourself, your business, or your dream), is what Matt credits with rounding out his success. “Dare to be different,” he told our students. “It’s one thing to have a dream. It’s another to take action.”

Our students left Matt’s Meet the Professionals talk with unique insight and preparation to achieve their goals. Matt will be working with more Carver students in the coming weeks to provide lessons in financial literacy. As an alum of the university, he is also looking forward to talking to our teens who will be visiting Duke as part of Carver’s 51st Spring College Tour in April, which will include school campus tours in North and South Carolina. Thank you, Matt, for being a dedicated resource and mentor to our students!

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Matt Rebold was the Managing Partner of Osprey Partners LLC, a broker dealer which specialized in the private placement of hedge funds. He is now semi retired and manages Bold Osprey LLC, his family holding company. Osprey raised over $1.2 billion for its clients during its existence. Prior to Osprey, Matt was Director of Marketing for Tiger Management Corporation in a period where assets grew from $400 million to approximately $4 billion under management. He was also on the Board of Directors for Lifesync Corporation and Fairfield Theater Company and continues to serve as Managing Director of Glenwood Capital. Matt additionally served as an advisor to Wellston Coal. We at Carver are so grateful to Matt for giving his time to our students.

Join us for our annual Breakfast With Champions! March 25th, 10 am - 12 pm

Carver’s Breakfast With Champions introduces Carver students and their parents to leaders in an array of professions. Save the date for this annual forum! Our champion speakers inspire middle schoolers and high schoolers to pursue their interests and to prepare for satisfying careers. Hot breakfast is provided and there will be door prizes and raffle items! For more information, call: 203-838-4305.

Carver earns Candid’s highest Seal of Transparency

The Platinum Seal of Transparency is the highest recognition offered by GuideStar (also known as Candid), the world’s largest source of nonprofit information. The Platinum Seal demonstrates Carver’s progress we are making toward our mission. You can have confidence that your support is moving Carver forward. 

To reach the Platinum level, we've added extensive information to our GuideStar Nonprofit Profile: basic contact and organizational information; in-depth financial information; qualitative information about goals, strategies, and capabilities; and quantitative information about results and progress toward our mission of changing the way the world defines and views disability. We have demonstrated our commitment to transparency and giving donors and funders meaningful data to evaluate our performance. 

Carver CASPER students go head-to-head in a battle to own the grid!

By Volunteer Julia Berg

Jeremiah plays a couple of rounds of Connect 4 with his counselor as homework time winds down. Connect 4 is a tic-tac-toe-like two-player game in which players alternately place pieces on a vertical board seven columns across and six rows high.

Although Jeremiah claims he is not skilled at the game and sometimes places his chips randomly, he impresses the counselor, a first-grader named Sierra, and a small group of students who watch his strategic moves.

Sierra has just finished her twenty minutes of daily reading when she spots Jeremiah and Kat playing Connect 4 and goes over to speculate. She waits until Jeremiah wins the game to ask if she can try before they leave for the next after-school activity.

Jeremiah agrees to play a game of Connect 4 with her. Though Sierra had never played before, she did a decent job during the game and enjoys playing.

Jeremiah may have won the game, but both students learned that it’s worth taking a risk to try something new and to get better at a task.  

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.

Community Spotlight: Altar'd State (SoNo Collection)

There are shops that sell goods, and then there are shops that do good. Altar’d State’s motto of “stand out. for good.” encompasses a mission to serve as an inspiration, empower others, and give more than they receive.

This past fall, Altar’d State partnered with The Carver as part of their Mission Mondays initiative; 10% of Altar’d State net proceeds on Mondays go directly to local charities across the country. We are amazed and grateful to announce that Altar’d State raised over $4,000 for The Carver. Thank you for supporting our kids and for standing out for good in Norwalk!

About Altar’d State: “Altar'd State is a rapidly growing women's fashion brand with more than 100 boutiques in 30 states. [They] offer a place of respite and a distinctive shopping experience with the latest fashion finds, the most sought-after accessories, charming home decor and gifts.” You can find Norwalk’s local Altar’d State at The SoNo Collection or online at altardstate.com.

What advice would Shakespeare give our students in 2023? We asked!

Shakespeare on the Sound (SOS) will bring two of Shakespeare's plays to Carver students. In March, SOS will bring its 45-minute version of Romeo and Juliet, R+J 4Evr, to the students in Carver's after-school program at Norwalk's four middle schools—Nathan Hale, Ponus, Roton, and West Rocks—and at Side by Side Charter School and the Carver Community Center. In June, SOS will bring a 30-minute version of its summer production As You Like It to multiple sites in Carver's after-school K-4 program.

Courtesy of Character AI, we asked William Shakespeare what Romeo and Juliet would advise our students in 2023. And then we asked Shakespeare what his advice would be. Here are his answers.

Romeo & Juliet: Be yourself. Never change for someone who doesn't love you for who you are! Learn how to forgive. Juliet can forgive Romeo for the death of her cousin Tybalt. It would be best to learn to forget your grudges because life is better when you forgive. Also, it would be best if you learned the importance of loyalty. And of family. I hope this is useful advice!

 Shakespeare: Never forget how great you are; have the courage to be yourself! "To be, or not to be" is more than a question. It's a statement of choice that we make every day. I am a big defender of individualism and free will. It is important to choose your way. Also, it's important to help other people. You must be yourself, but you also have a responsibility in society.

The benefits of clay art for our After the Bell students at Brookside Elementary School

Carver’s before and after-school program, After the Bell at Brookside Elementary School, is always bursting with creativity and joy, as shared in this story.

Today, a Brookside Elementary School story begins with one slice of clay. A blank canvas receptive to endless explorations by our ingenious students.

Squishing and pulling pieces off. Using a tool to make markings and indentations. Exploring how clay can hold an object upright. Making textures and impressions. Working with the small pieces – focusing on the details.

Manipulating (squishing, squeezing, pulling, pushing) a piece of clay helps develops the child’s dexterity and fosters eye-hand coordination. It builds a child's ability to focus and builds their attention span. Mathematical understandings include pattern making, experiential understanding of three-dimensional shapes, and tactical experience of size and weight differences. Literacy growth includes a new vocabulary – pound, pinch, roll, flatten, poke, tear squeeze, coil, stretch, squash, twist, and bend! And then there is the creative storytelling with each of these clay pieces our students created.

Playful learning helps our children develop social relationships and connectivity, which are important to a child's persistence in school, love of learning, and self-efficacy. Play is essential to learning.