Thanksgiving and hoops brings school together
Lawrence Woodmere Academy celebrated Thanksgiving by hosting the Harvest Festival, last month. Each year, students in all grades bring in all sorts of food, decorate the cafeteria, perform live music and invite members of the local community to join us.
The ninth-graders walked to a local nursing home to welcome senior citizens back to LWA to join in on the feast. As per tradition, the freshmen did an amazing job serving food to the entire school community, while the 10th grade served and socialized with our senior guests. Upper School Music Director Alexander Altieri coordinated student musical performances. Two new international students, James Luo and Aipo Qiu brought their violin and piano talents, respectively, to the surface by performing “Hungarian Rhapsody.”
Afterwards, the Upper School students gathered in the gym for the highly anticipated annual volleyball game, with students facing off against teachers. When the day ended, students eagerly awaited the next night’s alumni basketball game, featuring former LWA state champions and other stars of the past against the 2011-’12 boys’ varsity team. Director of Development and Alumni Relations Robbie Brenner spent nearly two months planning this event. On the night of the game, old friends reunited to show they still had skills on the court.
Unfortunately, the current basketball players were unable to defeat the alumni. After that game, the current students and alumni mixed teams to make the teams fair. Towards the end of the night, the players had a chance to show off their dunking skills in a Slam Dunk Contest. Three guest judges, history teach Lou Tolentino, alumnae Opal Simpson (’02) and Ryan Weiss, the 6-year-old son of Athletic Director and basketball coach Jeff Weiss, gave a score to each successful student and alumni dunker.
Overall, the night was a total success. Everybody had a great time and LWA continued to do what it does best — bring the school’s different generations together as a community — for this special event. I speak on behalf of all the seniors when I say that this was a great start to the end of our high school careers.
