Dear all -

Yesterday, many of us attended a fantastic culminating party to wrap up the local Cyberchase/Ernst & Young Volunteer program in New York for the year. As many of you already know, this program — which is being rolled out nationally — pairs Ernst & Young volunteers with schools and afterschool organizations across the country.

In New York, our local partnership is with PS 111 on Manhattan’s West side - a great public school with a huge diversity of students. Over the last 5 weeks, Ernst & Young volunteers and Thirteen staff have been going to the school every Monday and Thursday, helping second graders make “Buzz Banks” to save money and use “Donut Dinero” to understand the relationship between different denominations of currency, toothpick towers - among many other things.

At the party yesterday, over 70 kids were treated to a fun-packed afternoon including:

A rotating buffet of Cyberchase hands-on activities, led by EY Volunteers and Thirteen staff
A memorable visit by Digit the superstar bird, with pictures for all
A slideshow of photos of the kids & volunteers, taken during the program
Pizza, Cyberchase Cake, Fruit and Veg
Fun Cyberchase and EY giveaways for all!

The kids were adorable and had grown quite attached to the volunteers and Thirteen staffers they had gotten to know over the visits - it was very sweet to see.

A very special thanks is due to Janice Fuld, who has hit the ground running during her scant five months with Thirteen, and has been the mastermind of the entire Cyberchase/EY program in its second year. In addition to running the entire national rollout of the EY initiative this year, Janice managed the PS 111 program with the utmost skill and dedication. Kudos to Janice! We all really appreciate the care you put into your work!

Thanks also to the Cyberchase Outreach team: Laura Gallagher, Maura Thompson, and Corey Nascenzi - all of whom ran activities with the kids throughout the 5 weeks of the program, modeled best practices in classroom management for the EY Volunteers, and were instrumental to the program’s success!

From the party yesterday it was very obvious that the EY Volunteers LOVED the time they spent at the school and had gotten a huge amount out of the program. The kids were all hugging the volunteers and asking when they’d be back. On their end, the volunteers consistently said they couldn’t wait to do it again!

So, that’s it for the Year 2 local program - but here’s hoping for Year 3!

-Ashlinn