#NUEVATOGETHER
← To keep his Upper School students guessing, I-Lab engineer and Quest co-director John Feland dressed up in a new costume for every day of remote learning. He said, “What started as just wearing silly hats with fun backgrounds has turned into a daily challenge as I set out to have a different costume for the rest of the year. The goal is to show students you can be remote and still have fun!”
hour around the theme of “campfire stories,” and a trivia night. Community Partnerships
When Middle School students met with Christine on April 29, they brainstormed ways they could help support the community. Out of that meeting came the idea to support seniors in the community through the creation of fun, entertaining videos. They explored fundraising opportunities to purchase PPE for the homeless population in San Francisco. “In 20 minutes we’ve covered an awful lot of ground,” Christine said to close the meeting. “That was amazing.” “Not everyone is as fortunate as we are, and they are not able to stop working for long periods of time,” eighth grader Olivia C. said. “I want to help try to keep people safe, because lowering the COVID19 count will help everyone get back to work.” Sophomore Humza R. led efforts to raise critical funds for restaurants in his neighborhood. Humza decided in mid-April to gather some of his Palo Alto-area friends to raise money for two local restaurants: Kirk’s Steakburgers and Sancho’s Taqueria. “We organized this fundraiser as part of our organization, HERO Swim, which we started three years ago,” Humza shared. “We host a swim-athon fundraiser every fall to raise money for different causes around the world, but we felt like this was a really important time to help out those in need, which is why we put this effort together.” Sophomore Matthew S. spent the spring organizing Nueva benefit concerts, which he hopes to bring to the Nueva community this summer. “It’s difficult to maintain normalcy in our lives in these unpredictable times, but playing and
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To see more photos of John’s daily costumes, visit @costzooms on Instagram.
enjoying music is a constant no matter the time, place, or circumstance,” he wrote to the community. “That’s why I’m asking all musically inclined members of the Nueva community to record a video of themselves playing or singing a piece of music. It can be any length, any genre, and any instrument; as long as that piece of music is meaningful to you in some way, I’d love for you to record it.” Matthew plans to compile the videos he collects and livestream them as benefit concerts in order to raise funds for those most impacted by COVID-19. “I wanted to find a way to use music to strengthen our interpersonal relationships and feel connected as a community even while we are physically separate, and I wanted to help raise funds for those who are put in the most jeopardy by this pandemic. This benefit concert project is my way of bringing those two objectives together into one project,” he said.
The NPA also supported the greater community, through a fundraising effort titled “Protecting Our Front Lines Project.” Through monetary donations, the NPA was able to purchase 10,800 surgical masks, 332 N95 masks, 230,000 pairs of nitrile gloves, 60 face shields, 1,650 gowns, and 400 caps for California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC), Kaiser San Jose, Mills-Peninsula Hospital, Seton Medical Center, and Stanford Hospital. After receiving a donation of PPE, a director of one of these hospitals wrote, “I just wanted to thank you all for your heartwarming support. These have been challenging times for us all. But you all have given me new hope, and my heart brims with joy knowing that we have a community that cares. We appreciate you all. I am crying tears of joy.” [N]
See page 53 for how alumni have supported the Class of 2020.
Are you doing something to support the Nueva community or greater community? We’d love to hear from you! Email communications@ nuevaschool.org with your story.
