Office of Community Relations Helps Make Skating Dreams Comes True

Office Arranges for Skates for Students

For most of the fourth graders at Lawrence Family Development Charter School, their first time on ice skates was when they were third graders and Chancellor J. Keith Motley invited them to UMass Boston as part of the university’s 2010 Winter Wonderland festivities. The students asked their teachers for the chance to take to the ice again, and thanks to the Office of Community Relations, about 60 students were able to do so on January 12.

The office arranged for skates and food, and, as they did in 2010, the men’s and women’s hockey teams volunteered to help the students skate. Associate Director of Community Relations and Economic Development Philip J. Carver contacted the Boston Police Department to see if the department could help round up some helmets for the students. Dennis Rorie, community service officer for the Boston Police Department's C-11 district in Dorchester, had a small surplus of new bike helmets that he donated for the kids to wear while they skated.

The Lawrence Family Development Charter School was founded in 1995 by a coalition of Hispanic parents and community leaders who wanted a school that would be responsive to the academic, language, cultural, and developmental needs of their children.

About UMass Boston
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