Archive for October 2020
Volunteers Move Outdoor Learning Vision Forward
Thanks to more than 30 volunteers putting in dozens of hours over a recent weekend, learning in the outdoors is flourishing at Eastern Mennonite Elementary School. Outdoor classrooms are established and a bridge garden is ready for student gardeners. It’s all part of implementing the master plan for the renovated building which the school occupied…
Read MoreVarsity Cross Country Tackles Highland Trail 5K
Eight members of the EMS varsity cross-country team took part in a COVID-style 5K trail walk/run last weekend at Highland Retreat Center in Bergton, Virginia. Colorful scenery provided a beautiful backdrop for this single “competition” of the season. The trail walk/run 5K was available for the month of October to anyone. Participants paid a registration…
Read MoreNew Era for Choral Singing
Choral singing is one of the most effective ways to spread COVID-19. That reality hit EMS hard, a place where singing together has been core to building community for more than 100 years. But Jared Stutzman, choral director, and student singers are not letting COVID get them down. “I continue to be amazed and grateful…
Read MoreSolar barn raising: 357 Panels Installed
Editor’s Note: Ongoing data on the array, including a real time data displaying amounts of energy being harnessed, can be found on the EMS Solar Page. Dozens of volunteers — students, faculty, staff, community members, parents and grandparents — joined a “solar barn raising” on Saturday, Oct. 10, 2020 to install 357 solar panels atop…
Read MoreKeith and Ellen Helmuth ’55, Lifetime Service Recipients
D. Keith and Ellen (Slabaugh) Helmuth, of Woodstock, New Brunswick, Canada, are being honored with the Eastern Mennonite School Lifetime Service Award for 60 years of professional and personal engagement in care for creation. Both are members of the class of 1955. “They were environmentalists before it was popular,” wrote lifelong friend, classmate, and roommate…
Read MoreAndrew Jenner ’00, Community Engagement Awardee
Andrew Jenner ‘00 — Eastern Mennonite School’s 2020 Community Engagement Award recipient — has connected with readers at local and international levels for more than 15 years on everything from city council meetings to obscure science-y things with commitment to truth telling behind every story. As co-founder of the free, online independent news source, The…
Read MoreEMS to Stage Les Misérables, COVID-style
Eastern Mennonite School is excited to offer its students and the community an outdoor musical production of Les Misérables School Edition Oct. 29, 30 and 31 on the school’s south auditorium lawn. The musical by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michael Schönberg is based on the novel by Victor Hugo and tells the story of French peasant…
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