From The Bench: JMMS Completes 4 Year Fundraiser

As you know in my post From The Bench I focus on high school/college athletics and only write positive stories about the athletes, coaches and their teams. But with everything that's happening today in the world there's not much of high school sports to write about so here is some good news from my school The Joseph Melillo Middle School in East Haven. JMMS received news about a project that they had been working on for four years. The project is called "Water for South Sudan" and eighth grade Language Arts and Honor Society students lead by Mrs. Lauren Myers and Miss. Kaitlynn Seipold have been working with the students every year to raise money for a well to be dug in South Sudan. Mrs. Myers said that "English students as well as the entire school raised $5000 to sponsor this well. They did it by having dressdown days, redeeming bottles and cans, had a schoolwide baskets for Sudan basketball contest, design reusable water bottles to sell the students and staff, and several other fundraisers." This was a four year project in the making and very tough project to see through its end. Miss. Seipold stated "That when you take on a project like this you have to look at the long term goals. It was hard to tell eighth graders 4 years ago that they will not see any results until they are far in high school. We are so proud of all our students." From the Bench would like to say congratulations to all the students and complement Mrs. Myers and Miss Seipold on their efforts and let them know that they are the true leaders of Joseph Melillo Middle School. You make our community proud!

Mark Curcio

From The Bench