Thursday, May 2, 2024
With the start of May comes the rounding out of the school year. The Graham School gathered all of its soon-to-be graduates for a productive and fun Senior Send-Off. Students were equipped with Chromebooks and granted time together to polish off some final surveys and assignments. They also provided their measurements for caps and gowns, and best of all, they were fed fresh Donato’s pizza at the same time. They enjoyed some cold beverages, grapes and cookies, too! It was a collaborative working lunch, but it was not all work and no play.Â
Indeed, TGS planned a well-balanced meeting that also included games! Mary and Cassidy facilitated a particularly funny activity in which two students faced each other behind a black curtain. Once the curtain was dropped, the first student to correctly yell out the other’s name was the winner. It was a pretty entertaining exercise to see who really knew who their classmates were. With the laughter came the lesson - it is important to know the names of the people you associate with. Mary impressed upon the group that their fellow peers could end up being an excellent networking connection in the future.
To wrap up the event, TGS hosted a special guest speaker, Lori Fisher, the founder of Southside Hope Community Development Corporation. She spoke about the challenges that arise in life after high school and how valuable it is to always remain open-minded and willing to connect with others. She shared her own inspiring story that included the creation and failure of her first company but acknowledged that it was in the failure that growth could occur.Â
In order to make ends meet and pay the bills, she became an Uber driver where she met a woman who pointed her down a path of grant writing. This connection led her to writing the grant that funded the non-profit where she is now the director, Southside Hope. Ms. Fisher is a shining example of how life can always surprise you and that you should never give up. Students and staff alike walked out of the Senior Send-Off with a renewed sense of anticipation, a nice change of pace from the senioritis that had invariably taken hold in the waning weeks of the semester. Keep up the hard work, seniors! Graduation is just around the corner!