Category Archives: General

Marblehead Women Wins 2014 Stevie Award

A Marblehead resident just won a 2014 Stevie Award medal in the category of “Marketing Communications/PR Campaign of the Year – Business to Business.

Karen DelPrete, 25, was the winner. The Stevie Awards for Women in Business recognizes the achievement of women in business and the companies they represent. On November 14th, DelPrete was honored for her leadership and innovation at a ceremony in NYC. She was honored for her contribution in EMC’s federal health-care big-impact program called “The Big Data Cure.”

Care Packages for Our Troops

Recently at the Tower School in Marblehead they held a Friends of Our Troops event. This is an annual community service event that supports our troops by creating care packages and thank-you letters. The Tower School students were joined by other students who are part of Friends of Children-Boston to create 150 care packages. These packages were sent to US troops overseas and will be received, hopefully, before the holidays.

As Don Souter, a Tower parent, said, “Tower School is committed to providing opportunities for students to contribute meaningfully within their school, community and the world. Working with Friends of Children-Boston, an organization that has done so much to help the students of Boston, provides opportunities for Tower students to build lasting friendships across communities and creates wonderful community-service activities — helping to let our troops know that we care.”

As the Friends of Children-Boston Executive Director Michelle Harrington said, “We are incredibly grateful to the Tower School community for making these service events possible. This partnership allows children from different communities to learn from each other and give back together.”

Theatre Opportunity

For all the actors out there – the Story Theatre is having a workshop for girls and boys 6-10 on Sunday December 7th from 1:30-5pm. It will take place at the Chabad at the North Shore in Swampscott.

The children in the workshop will create short plays from children’s story books and will also learn some acting skills. They will work on strengthening their concentration and on developing their imaginations, in addition to other techniques.

At the end of the session, the plays they create will be performed for parents, relatives and friends. Miriam Eyges, who is the producing director of the Theatre of Light, will run the workshop. The enrollment will be limited to $10 kids and there will be a small fee of $45 to participate. Check it out here for more information: theatreoflight@comcast.net

Internet Safety Lecture at the Village School

On Thursday, October 16th, Katie L. Geer was at the Village School where she graduated. The North Shore native has created a business lecturing about Internet safety. With her private business, she offers seven different talks for students in kindergarten through college tailored to each audience’s needs.

She explained that fourth to six grade students need to relearn the idea about not talking to strangers. Since strangers today can hide behind their online identity, it’s an entirely new concept to understand and practice. She explained that middle school is not too early a time to start to talk about the perils of social media.

She explained “The number-one thing is just that parents need to pay attention.” She discussed the shocking statistic that, on average, children aged 8-18 spend 7.5 hours a day on some device or piece of technology.

Marblehead School of Ballet Celebrates 43rd Anniversary

The Marblehead School of Ballet has reason to dance. They are celebrating their 43rd anniversary season with a full and fantastic lineup of classes for 2014-2015. Their application process for scholarships is now open, awarding scholarships to dancers ages 12 to 21 to study ballet.

As Paula K. Shiff, director of the Marblehead School of Ballet said, “The scholarships are open to dancers who have a passion and dedication for ballet. This is a great opportunity to study with a highly trained and experienced staff.”

Shiff calls their program a “Dance oasis on the North Shore” and explains that MSB provides weekly classes in ballet, pointe and variations. There are pre-ballet classes, creative movement classes, modern and jazz, belly dancing, zumba, pilates and more.

As Shiff explained, “The seasoned dancer will find high-quality training at MSB. The internal mechanics of the body are emphasized and not the superficial aspects of style, bringing the dance to a higher level.” She continued, “To teach this way and for the dancer to work this way, one sees and feels the true joy of movement,” Shiff said. “This foundation is the heart of the dance.”

Success with Touch a Truck Event

On Sunday, September 23rd, the Marblehead Family Fund had their Touch a Truck event. Hundreds of children came to explore the heavy machinery and vehicles and to have fun. They raised over $3800 dollars for the Family Fund as well. Bob Donovan of Donovan Landscaping donated all of the construction vehicles and worked to prepare for the event. The Marblehead Police and Fire departments, the Cataldo Ambulance, US Roofing and the Marblehead Parks and Recreation Department were all helpful as well.

The hot dog lunch was provided by Derrick Topp.

Sculpture Donated to Marblehead

seal

On Sunday, September 14th, the Marblehead Festival of Arts announced the donation of a beautiful Benson Seamans sculpture, a harbor seal, to the town. The seal, titled “Winslow II” is a donation from both the Seamans family and the Marblehead Festival of Arts. It will be installed in Crocker Park as part of the MFoA’s 50th Festival Celebration. The dedication ceremony will be next spring. As one article explained,

“‘Winslow II’ will be a contribution to Marblehead’s history, a symbol of celebration and commemoration for the abundance of art within the town, including 50 years of Marblehead Festivals of the Arts and the Seamans’ long history of community commitment.”

Perlin New Lead Nurse in Marblehead Schools

In recent news, the Marblehead school system now has a new lead nurse. They voted anonymously through the School Committee to approve of the hire of Margarita Perlin. The vote was 4-0 at the meeting on Thursday, September 18th. Perlin has been a resident of Swampscott for 15 years and she is leaving her position as lead nurse in the Chelsea schools. She will start with Marblehead on September 29th.

Perlin immigrated to the United States from Russia in 1994. As she explained about the transition, “The communities are completely different, but people are people. They all have health issues.”

Marblehead Navy Recruit Finishes Basic Training

Marblehead is tipping its hat to Navy Seaman Abigail D. Leblanc, daughter of Daniel T. and Joanne M. Leblanc of Marblehead. She recently completed US Navy basic training at Recruit Training Command in Great Lakes, Illinois.

Leblanc is a 2014 graduate of Marblehead High School. During the eight week program that she just completed, she completed classroom study on naval customs, first aid, firefighting, water safety and survival and shipboard and aircraft safety.

The biggest event of the boot camp was “Battle Stations.” This gave recruits the skill to succeed in the fleet.

Register Tapes Raise Money for Schools

Crosby’s Marketplace wants to remind parents and students of their Register Tapes for Education program. Here is how the program works. Customers collect their grocery receipts from Crosby’s Marketplace and then give the receipts to their school. When they deposit the receipts into the RTFE program, the receipts are then converted into points and redeemed for free equipment and supplies from the program catalog.

The catalog has over 3000 items including pens, pencils, computers, sports equipment and more.

As Jim Crosby, the president of the Crosby’s Marketplace, explained, “We are proud to participate in this program to help provide much-needed educational equipment that goes into the classrooms of our customers’ children. This program is a way of enhancing the education of our youth and thanking our customers for their shopping loyalty.”

During last school year, the Crosby’s Marketplace stores raised over $5500 for nine local schools through this program. The 2014-2015 program started on September 1. For more information about the program, people can call 978-745-4272.