Middlesex Middle School Team Thanked by Norwalk/Nagarote Sister City Project

An announcement from the Norwalk/Nagarote Sister City Project thanking Middlesex Middle School Purple Team kids and parents:

Sixty-five youngsters in Norwalk’s sister city, Nagarote, Nicaragua will be attending school this year thanks to the generosity of Purple Team kids and parents at Middlesex Middle School in Darien.

And, students in Allyson Power’ Spanish classes are exchanging pen pal letters with them. The scholarships were facilitated by the Norwalk/Nagarote Sister City Project. The scholarships have been a tradition at Middlesex Middle School since 2008, when Frank Keen, Aqua Team teacher, initiated the project.

Keen has since retired and Mike Tracey, Purple Team teacher, has continued the project. In 2013, Joan Lauten, Spanish Teacher, asked to engage the scholarship students in pen pal letters with her classes and, although she has retired, the correspondence has continued under the leadership of Allyson Power.

Below is a translated letter from one of the young scholarship students:

Dear Middlesex Middle School

Hello my name is Paola Michell Saldaña Lopez. I am 9 years old. I live with my family. I go to San Martin School and I am in 4th grade.

I have participated in the Norwalk program for 4 years. I take reading circle classes and I have a scholarship. I participate in tutoring. My favorite subject is Natural Sciences and my favorite food is tejadas con queso (fried, thin, crisp, unripe plantains with cheese).

I like studying a lot, and I am also the best student in my class. I like to ride my bike, go to the park, and read. How old are you? What is your name?

Where do you go to school? What do you do in your free time? I appreciate you for supporting me in my studies. I’m saying goodbye with lots of love and affection.

Paola Michell Saldaña Lopez

The Norwalk/Nagarote Sister City Project is a partnership between the people of Nagarote, Nicaragua, and the Greater Norwalk Area of Connecticut, focusing on sustainable community development and breaking the cycle of poverty for the most disadvantaged children and youth in Nagarote.

Now it ins 28th year, the project works with more than 400 severely disadvantaged children in Nagarote offering an afterschool program for 178 teens in computers, English, sewing, art, theater and sports; supporting a preschool where enrollment has grown from 4 to 52; providing afterschool tutoring and enrichment to 98 children aged 6-11; affording scholarship for 82 students from first grade through college and creating a model sustainable farm as a laboratory for area farmers who want to adopt sustainable methods and a service learning opportunity for the project’s teens who take home some of the produce they harvest to enrich their meager diets. For more information go to the organization’s website.

Picture from the Norwalk/Nagarote Sister City Project website