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| A common sight in the Ginn Academy hallways: Officer Albert helps one of our juniors with his tie. |
Hello Ginn Academy supporters! We have one more post before all of the end of the year graduation festivities begin. As always, there are a lot of great things going on at Ginn.
Many of you know of our school because of the attention heaped on the mighty Glenville Tarblooders football team each year. But we are not only about football! We have students involved in pretty much every other sport, too, and a newer addition to the list is rowing. Four of our boys are part of the CMSD Rows youth rowing organization. There is room for more.
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| Coach Russ Eckles talks with the group of rowers that includes our Ginn boys |
Coach Russ Eckles dedicates his free time to this integrative group of area teens from all over the city because of the teamwork, healthy lifestyles, and discipline that the sport promotes. "Rowing is not a high profile sport and it is very demanding of their time, mind and bodies," he explains.
CMSD Rows is currently in the running for a large matching grant offered by Dicks Sporting Goods. If they can raise their goal of $38,000 by 5/23/14, Dicks will match that amount. See this link for details and to donate to this fantastic program.
Our four boys are picked up every day after school by a taxi that takes them to Rivergate Park downtown. Practices and workouts are rigorous but look like so much fun. Mr. James Fisher, Ginn Academy Life Coach, and I spent a few hours on the Cuyahoga with this great group of young men and their coxswain. What a blast!
A few months ago, Mrs. Peterson our instructional coach, organized Ginn Academy's first Shaespeare Competition to highlight our young men gifted in the area of drama and speech. It was held in our media center and featured Stephen Brody, Suantai Burgess, Keshawn Callahan, Donte Levert, Marquise Lewis, Dominique Okafor, and Shawndell Young. Each of the boys performed a dramatic reading of a Shakespearean monologue. Pictured below are two of the winners, Keshawn Callahan and Sauntai Burgess, with Ms. Mrs. Peterson.
Our College Now advisor, Colleen Damerell, continues to help the students with test prep and college admissions. We are so grateful to have this program in our school!
Some of our enterprising seniors have put together a snack cart to help them raise money for senior activities. They sell to other students after school and have had a nice boost in sales from the generously donated items from our faculty.
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| Ginn Academy seniors, Davon, Quan, Aaron, Jabrae, Jimond, and Christian |
We were all very excited to learn that one of our Ginn family members would be returning to Cleveland from San Francisco. Donte Whitner played football for Coach Ginn at Glenville and is executive assistant Hazel Parker's nephew. He will play for the Browns this year. Welcome home, Donte!
Everyone loves these vases made by art teacher, Judy Rickel, to be used as centerpieces for the traditional senior class Dining-In. Each one shows three of the four Ginn Academy ties: solid black for 9th graders, solid red for 10th, and striped for juniors.
Last week, senior Jimond Ivey had a signing ceremony during one of our morning sessions to sign his full scholarship from the University of Akron. Jimond, who is a basketball player, was accompanied by his mother and two brothers and we are all so proud of him!!
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| Jimond Ivey, in white shirt, with his mother and two brothers |
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| Mrs. Parker brought these cute basketball tissues especially for Jimond's mother, knowing how emotional these big events can be |
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| GA Dean of Students, Darrell Bolden, spoke to all of the students about Jimond's journey and everyone who helped him along the way |
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| Hazel Parker, Darrell, Bolden, Jimond Ivey, Ted Ginn, Sr., and Jimond's life coach, Charles Williams |
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| Jimond (center, bow tie), and members of the JV and varsity basketball teams |
From Ms. Khan:
We are growing greens in the vivarium and some beets and carrots, too. We are planning to have our second annual Salad Day on May 22, using the crops we grew. I will bring fresh baked dinner rolls from Breadsmith--to have with the salads. Last year (HealthCorps coordinator) Ms. Jackson brought healthy toppings for the salads--sunflower seeds, craisins, nuts, grape tomatoes, etc. Victor Freeman made a healthy low-cal dressing for us. It was super healthy and super good!
We are also moving forward with renovating the vivarium. We have the funds now from the Youth Advisory Board State Farm grant.
The Summer Sprout program is a community garden program run by a partnership between the city of Cleveland and the Ohio State University Extension Office. There are 170 gardens all over the city. Click on the link above to learn more.
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| The plan is for this vacant lot next to our school to one day be a large community garden |
We'll leave you with a few photos from around the school and of our seniors (identified by their crested ties) who are beyond ready to move on to their next adventures. Our next post will be all about the year-end celebrations and recognitions.
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| Life coaches, staff, and freshmen at morning session |
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| Theo Washington, Sr., long-time Ginn Academy friend, checks in with two of our students. We have a good group of supporters who stop in regularly to check on the boys and offer advice. |
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| Ginn Academy students with one of our super volunteers, Dr. Ernest Smoot |
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| Life coach, Tony Fox, talks with one of his students |
Kind regards from everyone at Ginn Academy
PS -- Coach Ginn will be honored this coming Saturday evening, 5/10/14, at the Lake County Captains game. He will be inducted into their Crow's Nest Hall of Fame. The game starts at 6:30. Please come and cheer him on! Here's the info:
