DANBURY: Congratulations to the Wooster graduates of the Class of 2022

 

DANBURY (FAIRFIELD COUNTY) CT: Wooster School held its Commencement Exercises on Friday, June 10 to celebrate the graduation of the Class of 2022. These seniors join more than 3,000 alumni who have graduated since Wooster's founding in 1926.

Vice-President of the Wooster School Board of Trustees, Jennifer Wadehra offered kind words to Wooster's soon-to-be graduates. “Graduates, you have shown that you are truly kind and generous. As a class, you excelled in academics, arts, sports and service. Let’s pause for a minute and remember again how challenging the last few years have been. Maybe the struggles are top of mind. That’s understandable too. Yet today, you are here, and you navigated the unknown, the losses and the changes - all while expected to learn, mature, have fun and plan for your future. Please know, that’s a lot and it’s more than enough. We celebrate every one of you.”

Class orator Cole Breen ‘22 delivered some heartfelt remarks. “The idea of shared values and knowing you are a part of something bigger than yourself is invaluable. Wooster is a small school, but we are big in the way that matters - friendship, empathy, respect, challenging oneself, and the ability to communicate one's thoughts, feelings, and ideas effectively are just some of the many skills that a Wooster student learns over their four or more years.” Breen added, “We build community not only by caring and talking with one another, but by our common identity. Some of us have been here since kindergarten, others since middle school, and even more who have come over the past few years. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter when or where we came from, it matters where we all arrived…Wooster School.”

Before the seniors received their diplomas, Head of School Matt Byrnes spoke to the graduating class. "Questions are essential, because they demand answers. Good answers are hard to come by and require thinking, and discussion, and listening. The big, personal and existential questions require the most work – and that isn’t a bad thing." Byrnes added, "The more questions I ask, the more I read, the more I listen, and the more I learn, the more I need to know. The more I want to know. But that’s what I would call a virtuous cycle to be in. And the interactions which will best shape your existence and define who you are are those with the people whom you love. Your family, and your friends. Those are the interactions that will create the matter of your life, the perceptible reality. Through them, purpose and meaning emerge and evolve. Your work, your passions, your experiences, they will all contribute – they’ll help to round out your sense of what you are for, but it is the love you share with others – your vulnerability, your generosity, your courage, your forgiveness in relationships – that will get you closer to understanding yourself and your purpose in this life."

Congratulations to the Great Class of 2022 for all of their accomplishments!

Wooster School Class of 2022

Isabel Allo

Alex Ancona

Charlie Aspillaga

Gabe Bordoy

Cole Breen

Sam Briody

Bella Brown

Logan Burhance

Alli Byrne

Lulu Carone

Angelina Cerulli

Raymond Consiglio

Abigail Duffy

Trip Dulecki

Jordan Dupree

Marcus Dupree

Kai Escobar

Parker Etzbach

Reid Etzbach

Joey Everett

Lalo Farro

Zach Felton

Colin Fortson

Robert Gabrik

Sean Garvey

Sam Goldblat

Alex Goldstein

Justine Gray

Ben Greco

Kieran Greeley

Ethan Hale

Megan Heneghan

Deanna Jones

Chris Komar

Charlie Levy

Griffith Li

Hailey Looney 

Skyler Marcus

Johnny Masi

Morgan Nelson

Patrick O'Brien

Sasha Peck

Max Porter

Sophia Rodriguez

Brendan Santiago

Vlad Schwindeman-Romano

Lillie Shipman

Tillie Spencer

Benedicta Szewczuk

Shane Taubin

Cass Washington

Riley Whelehan

Patrick Xue

Elena Yin

Evie Zahner

William Zhang

About Wooster School

Wooster School is an independent, co-educational college preparatory day school, serving students from Fairfield and Westchester Counties. Located in Danbury, Connecticut, the School serves students from grade 5 through grade 12. A leader in classroom innovation and teaching, Wooster School is a place where thinking and learning are personal, meaningful, and visible; and where faculty work closely with students in small classes and cohorts to think and communicate critically and creatively. At Wooster, every student participates, every student contributes, and every student learns and develops the necessary skills to be a life-long learner and leader in college and beyond.

To learn more, visit http://www.woosterschool.org/ or contact Wooster School Admissions at (203) 830-3916.

WESTPORT: Award-winning singer/songwriter Diana Jones will be at Westport’s Voices Café on Saturday evening June 11th, at 8:00pm, in-person and live streamed

 

WESTPORT  (FAIRFEILD COUNTY) NY: A concert is raising funds for the Connecticut Institute for Refugees and Immigrants’ (CIRI) Apartment Set Up Team who settle refugees in Fairfield County. CIRI has been settling refugees in Connecticut for 104 years. The Apartment Set Up Team began 7 years ago and is comprised of volunteers, primarily from 6 area faith communities.

Diana Jones has been a major literary voice in contemporary song since her 2006 breakthrough album, My Remembrance of You, which garnered rave reviews. This album set her on a path which would see her release four further critically acclaimed albums: Better Times Will Come (2009), High Atmosphere (2011), Museum Of Appalachia Recordings (2013) and Live In Concert (2016). She has toured the globe, including performances at Cambridge Folk Festival, Galway Arts Festival, Levon Helm’s Ramble in Woodstock, NY, and Bimhuis in Amsterdam, and shared stages with the likes of Richard Thompson, Janis Ian and Mary Gauthier.  

Jones’ progressive, yet historically rich, songs have been recorded by artists including Joan Baez and Gretchen Peters and have won her awards from Kerrville New Folk Festival, New Song Festival and nominations from International Folk Alliance. 

Jones’s inspiration for Song To A Refugee came through a chance encounter with actress Emma Thompson in New York City, and at a time when Jones was recovering from a serious illness. Although her health was improving, artistically Diana felt at a loss. At the same time, Diana found the harsh reality of what was happening at the US-Mexican border particularly distressing; scenes of mothers separated from their children resonating with her own experience as an adopted child. After the chance meeting with Emma Thompson in a NYC park, Diana Jones was called out of her writer’s block.  Says Jones, “for a lot of us there’s that one person we would love to meet and for me it was Emma… she was so kind and passionate, especially about the refugee crisis.” 

Jones began to write the stories that she found so devastating, one voice at a time. “My own need to ‘re-humanize’ the people who were being dehumanized by governments resulted in a flood of songs,” says Jones. One of the album’s strengths is Jones’ ability to inhabit the characters about whom she is writing, from the woman walking miles to the US border carrying her child, to the young children separated from their parents fleeing their homeland, giving an immediacy to their stories while illuminating the more generic themes within.

Diana is rooted in the Appalachian traditions of her birth family and has proven unusually adept at distilling complicated cultural forces down to a particular person in a particular time and place. When Jones was reunited with her birth family in her twenties, she spent time with her Tennessee grandfather. “I decided to throw out my previous songs,” she says, “and go to the woods and ask my grandfather and my ancestors for help.” That decision yielded such powerful songs as “Pretty Girl” and “Pony”, which came from a story told by her grandfather about children removed from their families to go to Indian Schools. 

With Song To A Refugee, Jones continues to give voice to the dispossessed, and bring awareness to social justice issues, taking her place in the lineage of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. “I believe we all want to get involved and give each other hope,” Jones says, “how can any of us look away?”.  Don’t miss this opportunity to see Diana Jones, and support arriving refugees settling in our area.

Learn more: https://www.dianajonesmusic.com/ 

Refugees arrive with just the clothes on their backs. They need housing and everything from a toothbrush, to pots and pans, to a bed. Funds raised by this concert will be used to purchase these items.

Over the past 6 months, 72 volunteers have set up 41 apartments in Bridgeport and New Haven for 194 refugees. The value of the furniture and supplies donated and purchased, estimated at $48,000, is priceless to refugees.

David Vita, Director of Social Justice at The Unitarian Church in Westport said, “World Refugee Day (June 20), the recent surge of Afghan refugees, refugees arriving from countries like Ethiopia, Syria, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the imminent arrival of Ukrainian refugees plus Diana Jones’ commitment to this cause made her the logical choice for Voices Café’s June performance.”

Diana Jones’ signature storytelling is at its best with her award-winning Song To A Refugee, reflecting deep empathy for, and common cause with the plight of refugees. Jones is known for giving voice to dispossessed people, and her voice will stay with you, “...at times haunting, at times heart-breaking, and always challenging”, says Down at the Crossroads. 

Voices Café is located at The Unitarian Church in Westport, 10 Lyons Plains Road, Westport. Doors open at 7:30.