We had a great Special Olympics at Furman this week, and it was made very special by the enthusiasm of the Riverside High School students who accompanied our Washington Center guys.  The weather cooperated; some old friends came by; our own Davis Dalby was a torch bearer; and, everyone seemed to have a great time.  Special thanks to Cindy Brown, Linda Hill, Terry Wilson, Coach Robert and Warren Bolos for all they did to make it all happen so smoothly.

Also this week I hope everyone saw our own Sharon Russo on WYFF.  She was selected for the Golden Apple Award and the WYFF crew came out to Washington Center to interview and film her.  She did a great job, and all of us here at school are very proud.  If you missed the segment, you can pull it up on the WYFF website ---- Just put “Russo” into the search box.

PTA met this week to make final plans for the Walk and Roll, and we hope many of you will be able to join us on April 25 at Brookwood Church for this event.  We are expecting a big turnout, and PTA hopes to raise lots of money for school activities.  Many thanks to those of you who have sent in registrations, however, if you have not done so, please come anyway.  I guess all the shirts have been spoken for, but we would love to have a big crowd to walk. 

We turned in our yearbook draft today.  Jennifer Gault and Barbara Bingham have worked very hard on this, and I think it is going to be something you will all really like.  Barbara has given the printers a tentative number of copies to make, but if you have not sent in your money and would like a yearbook, we are going to take orders until 9 am on Monday (April 13).  The books are $15, and we will be providing one for each student family at no charge.  However, those of us who are friends or staff members will need to buy our own.

You may have heard about the Nature Trail our PTA and the Sara Collins PTA are working to develop.  So far we have a landscape architect and a surveyor who have volunteered their services, and the district has agreed to help with tree removal and bringing in fill dirt where it is need.  We also think we may have a contractor who will actually lay the trail at cost, and there are district matching funds that we hope to take advantage of as well.    We are still in the planning stages for the trail, but when it is complete, we think it will be a great addition to the school.

We also have a project we are working on for our little folks at Hollis.  Though they have a great playground over there, they do not have any shaded outside areas.  We have gotten bids on an umbrella shade that we can purchase and have installed so that we can put a sand table or even a wading pool in one of the grassy spots and have some shade to protect the children from the sun’s glare.  We are working on raising money for this project, and the district has agreed to provide a 25% match, so if any of you would like to donate to Hollis’  “shade project” it would be wonderful.  One large umbrella certainly does not solve the problem, but it will enable us to get the children out a little more often and will provide some protection while they are outside.

Next week we will all be heading over to Wade Hampton High School on Tuesday for their performance of Anansi the Spider.     Parents and homebound students are all invited to attend and the Wade Hampton folks are looking forward to having us.   

On Wednesday we will host the Palliative Care group from the hospital.  If any of our parents have not signed up for that breakfast session, please do.  Many, maybe even most of our students have occasion to be hospitalized, and the Palliative care group can provide valuable services during the stressful time when children are hospitalized.  The breakfast is being provided at no charge by the PTA, and the session will begin at 8:30.  Parents, please plan to come if you can work it into your schedule.

We have lots more coming up in the next few weeks.  Look for Washington Center’s spring newsletter next week, and then of course we have Craft Day on May 8 and Community Day on May 22.  We are excited about all that is going on, and hope you will join us as you have time.