Greenwich voters did more than cast ballots last Tuesday. At polling places across town, they stopped at bake sale tables run by middle school students and parents and raised approximately $12,000 for the 8th Grade DC Trip Scholarship Fund.
Eastern Middle School families ran tables at Riverside, Old Greenwich, and North Mianus Schools, while Central and Western Middle School families ran sales at their own polling sites. Students stood out front with handmade signs and offered homemade treats, coffee, and snacks to every voter who walked by, asking each one to support the trip.
“The cookies were great, but the kids were the reason people stopped,” said Michelle O’Donnell, who co-chairs the EMS effort with Mary Ann Ranalli. “Voters saw a crowd of middle schoolers working for their classmates, and they gave.”
A voter who stopped by the election day bake sale table was Rich Jaccheo, who shared a photo from his own 8th grade trip to Washington, DC with Western Middle School in 1984, and spent a few minutes reminiscing with the current 8th graders about the trip.
One of those voters was Rich Jaccheo, who stopped at the table with a photo from his own 8th grade trip to Washington, DC with Western Middle School in 1984, and spent a few minutes reminiscing with the current 8th graders about the trip. The trip has been a Greenwich Public Schools tradition for more than forty years, and for many residents it remains one of the most vivid memories of middle school.
Before the pandemic, though, students whose families could not afford the trip stayed behind at school. When the trip returned in 2023, parents, principals, and teachers from all three middle schools, with the Greenwich Alliance for Education as fiscal sponsor, created the scholarship fund with one rule: if any student cannot go, no school goes. Since then, the fund has helped more than 225 students make the trip.
This year the need is the largest the fund has faced. In sum, 95 students across Central, Eastern, and Western Middle Schools have applied for full or partial scholarships, and with the trip now costing about $1,000 per student, the total need is $73,000. Tuesday’s bake sales raised enough to cover 12 full trips. The fund must raise the rest before the buses leave in May.
The fund raises money throughout the year through community donations, a holiday gift wrap sale, a Comedy Night in the spring, and grant support from Greenwich United Way. It is a community-wide effort: Central, Eastern, and Western Middle Schools fundraise together, as one town, so that every Greenwich 8th grader makes the trip.
“It is an incredible start, and we have a long way to go,” said Jenny Dutile, Committee Chair of the 8th Grade DC Trip Scholarship Fund. “Every dollar goes directly to a Greenwich 8th grader’s seat on the bus.”
To give, visit greenwichalliance.org/dc-trip-