Hackley students continue to foster a relationship with 16 Hudson Scholars from Sleepy Hollow Middle School. The Hudson Scholars club, led by sophomore Amy Chalan, senior Roya Wolfe, and senior dean David Sykes, hosted the students on campus for an activity-packed day on Veterans Day. The new and returning volunteers reconnected with the sixth graders and even participated in a team building activity. Each team had to stack as many red plastic cups as they could without using their hands. Afterwards, they had lunch while watching videos from the summer enrichment program and then played soccer on Akin Common with Hackley students. The day concluded with a goal planning activity to give the scholars a path to achieving their academic goals. The club plans to host a Christmas party for the scholars and send volunteers to Sleepy Hollow Middle School for homework help.

The excitement of the holiday season brings out Hackley students’ ongoing desire to give back. The seniors especially cherish the relationships they have built with elementary school students at P.S. 81 in Brooklyn since their freshman year. Each year, the seniors enjoy their student-specific toy drive. This allows them to send gifts to the individual child whose name is written on a card, instead of arbitrarily distributing gifts to unknown people. “The best part of it all is the look on the kids’ faces when we deliver the toys,” said senior dean David Sykes. The P.S. 81 Toy Drive is unique for its personal element and real-life connections, which generate an incredibly powerful dynamic.

On the subject of construction on campus, Peter McAndrew, Director of Finance, commented, “The objective is to get everything enclosed and then the interior would start. In this structure, interior will not be as time consuming as say Raymond was or the Goodhue library because it’s an athletic structure, and there’s less millwork is the primary thing. It’s important to get all of the foundations around all of the five buildings done. The foundations are what comes out of the ground and comes up about four or five feet. If that’s all done before it gets really really cold. When it gets really really cold it’s very difficult to do that kind of thing and have concrete work, both because the concrete doesn’t bind properly and because the soil gets frozen, and you can’t do that function when you have those two conditions. So if we get that all done then if there’s bad weather primarily snow, all they have to do is move the snow from the foundations that have been already built, and that’s relatively easy to do.”

Hackley’s Model UN Club, led by juniors Connor Larson, Christina Wang, and Alex Wenstrup, attended UNIS MUNC III on December 4, along with five other delegates. The delegates debated, wrote working papers, and passed resolutions within their committees varying from the UN Security Council to the Berlin Conference of Africa. After 10 hours of forming blocs and passing amendments, Hackley’s eight delegates successfully passed resolutions and ended the conference with sophomore Raghav Chopra winning Best Delegate for the UNSC Committee. Future conferences will be held at Cornell University and Pelham Memorial High School.