Brownell Middle School fifth-grade teacher Pat Brown set out on a dual mission last spring — to host a LEGO drive to benefit the pediatric floor at Ascension St. John Hospital and to train for a 50-kilometer marathon at Kensington Metropark. He recently crossed the finish line on both.
Brown and his wife, Megan, a first-grade teacher at Kerby Elementary School, made the pledge to pay it forward in appreciation of the support their family received after their son, Hudson, was diagnosed with medulloblastoma, a type of brain cancer, and underwent emergency surgery several years ago. Hudson spent nine days in the intensive care unit and had 30 radiation treatments and nine cycles of chemotherapy. He is now in remission, but one thing that helped him during this difficult time, his father recalls, was building LEGO sets.
Brown met and exceeded the goal of matching LEGO sets to kilometers run in his “50 for 50” drive with a total of 192 LEGO sets from a combination of donations and cash contributions.
On Sunday, July 25, he also successfully completed the marathon, battling the heat, humidity and hills to finish in 6 hours and 44 minutes. He was one of nine out of 40 runners registered for the 50-kilometer distance to finish.
The day after the marathon, he reported he was “pretty sore, but very happy.”
True to his promise, Pat and his family delivered the sets directly to the pediatric floor at Ascension St. John Hospital.
The Browns also made a $500 donation to Ascension’s Child Life Program, which supports children and families throughout the hospital, and donated LEGO sets to the Proton Radiation Center at Beaumont Royal Oak, where Hudson spent six weeks receiving radiation.
“I am extremely thankful for the amazingly generous response to this LEGO drive, but I am not surprised,” Brown said. “Since Hudson's initial diagnosis, our family has felt the love, support, and generosity of so many people, and I knew that people would show up for this drive in a huge way. I am grateful for the opportunity to use running as a way to pay forward the kindness that was shown to my family and hope these LEGO sets bring a lot of smiles to children and families going through a very difficult time.”
So much fun at Camp O’Fun
The fun continues at Camp O’Fun as it completes its sixth week. Each week features a different theme, with a party on Fridays to celebrate. Activities and art projects for the week center around each theme, with the camp decorated accordingly.
Led by Crystal Fletcher with 25 staff members rotating among the groups, Camp O’Fun kicked off the first week with a Hawaiian theme and ended with a luau. In Can You Build It? campers built towers with blocks or marshmallows and sticks and competed to create the tallest building or strongest structure.
To celebrate Independence Day during Rockin’ in the USA, campers decked out in red, white and blue attire. For Sports Jam week, the children wore T-shirts and jerseys representing their favorite sports teams. Flags from different countries adorned the camp during Around the World in Five Days and campers created their favorite culinary dish as that week’s art project.
This week closed with the ever-popular talent show, which parents had the opportunity to view on Zoom.
Graduate spotlight: Brandon Miller
Brandon Miller had an epiphany the summer between his sophomore and junior years at Grosse Pointe North High School.
During a visit at his grandparents’ house, he was drawing while listening to “Into the Wild” — the required summer reading — on audiobook.
“I was just listening to it while I was drawing and I had one of those moments when I was like, I can do this as a job and I really like doing this,” he said.
Brandon had drawn on his own from a young age, but that was the moment he realized his passion was something he could study in school and turn into a career. Senior year he doubled up on art classes, enrolling in Drawing and Painting with art teacher Lisa Warren — a full-year class — and a semester of Computer Graphics with art teacher Michael Lamb.
Once he decided to focus on art in college, it was time to build his portfolio.
Even though his formal art education began late, “I had been drawing pretty regularly for all the rest of high school,” Brandon said. “When I saw when the portfolio was due, I said, I’m going to keep drawing until I have enough pieces.”
Among his college options, Brandon chose Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia. He visited over midwinter break and was drawn to the town of Savannah. The other turning point in his decision was the fact it was “a new place” away from home.
“It’s really a good place to study any type of art,” Brandon said. “It has a really high alumni employment rate; I think it’s something like 90 percent. Really, any art-related field is great to do there.”
In fact, SCAD bills itself on its website as “the university for creative careers.” Brandon plans to major in illustration with an eye on designing characters and environments for movies, TV shows and video games.
A resident of Grosse Pointe Shores, Brandon attended Monteith Elementary and Brownell Middle School. Among his favorite classes was TV Production with Brian Stackpoole, which he took all four years.
“I really liked that class,” he said. “It was fun to create the videos in the assignments Mr. Stackpoole gave. I was always looking forward to figuring out a way to make it a really fun project.”
Brandon has a few words of advice for high school students who may be interested in pursuing art in college and as a career.
“I guess it’s about just being satisfied with what you can do because you’re always going to wish that you could draw something better, that you could make something a little more perfect,” he said. “It’s about the small victories because if you just keep drawing, eventually you will get to the point where you can look at what you’ve done and say, ‘I like that. I’m proud of that.’ And that is just an amazing feeling I think that everybody who likes to draw should have.
“I still definitely have times when I’m not happy with what I’ve done or I wish I could draw something better,” he added, “but I just keep working at it until I like the way it looks.”
What he looks forward to most in college is improving his art skills and meeting fellow artists.
“I think it’s going to be a fun experience to be around a whole bunch of other people who are interested in art,” he said.
Bond construction project update
Bond projects are well underway this summer at Maire Elementary, Richard Elementary, Brownell Middle School and Grosse Pointe North High School.
Construction, beginning with demolition and abatement work, started as soon as the school year was done, according to Deputy Superintendent for Business and Operations Amanda Matheson, who gave a brief presentation on the progress of the projects during the July 26 Board of Education meeting.
Principals at each school undergoing renovations this summer were given guided tours before and during construction.
“They were pretty pleased with the project that they saw from the end of June tour and the one we just did last week when we toured with the North admin team, Principal Ryan Francis at Maire, Principal John Kernan at Richard, and Principal Rodger Hunwick at Brownell,” Matheson noted.
Progress so far includes boiler work, bathroom renovations and the installation of new ceiling grids, ceiling tiles and lighting. Framing is underway for the new counseling center at Grosse Pointe North, with demolition complete on the former counseling center, which will be renovated into office space for the central administration team.
Detailed daily and weekly schedules are amended as needed.
“As with any construction, when you break into old buildings the way we are demoing, there are unforeseen circumstances,’ Matheson said. “We’ve had to do some additional abatement in some areas that has slowed down construction, but there are plans in place to have contractors working second shift and/or weekends to be able to catch up.”
The goal is to be ready for construction turnover, scheduled on Aug. 17, which will begin with construction clean-up, followed by movement management and a final detailed clean to make sure the buildings are ready for the start of school Tuesday, Sept. 7.
Click here to see photos of progress at each construction project.
Register now for Summer Choir
The 28th annual GPPSS Summer Choir for upcoming grades 4 to 12 will be August 16 to 20 at Parcells Middle School. Hours are Monday to Thursday from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. and Friday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Final performances (pending MDHHSS guidelines) are scheduled for 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Friday, August 20. The high school guest conductor is Dr. Kimberly Dunn-Adams from Western Michigan University. Click here to register. Contact Carolyn Gross at grossc@gpschools.org for more information.