There are so many different requests that the PTO gets throughout the year for funds from teachers and others that impact the kids at Chapman’s Retreat. These requests span a huge range of items and projects that impact daily life for our children. We wanted to start a blog series on letting you know where your money goes, and how it impacts kids so you know how important PTO resources and fundraisers are to all of our children and teachers.
The first project we want to highlight is Destination Imagination. It has been several years since Destination Imagination (DI) has been at CRES and we are so excited to have teams again. DI was opened to all children at CRES and a parent information night was held. Not only was there interest in forming a team, but we have now formed EIGHT TEAMS!!! That’s 48 CRES kids who are benefiting from this amazing program!! We also have 10 amazing parents and grandparents who have volunteered to coach teams. We are blown away by the interest in this program, and believe it is an amazing opportunity for our kids to grown and learn. We have four Rising Stars teams (K-2nd) and four competition teams (3rd-5th).
While DI is not a PTO sponsored activity, the PTO did vote to cover a portion of the registration fees for our 8 DI teams. The parents of the children involved in DI were asked to cover the rest of the fees. We believe this DI is great for our school and for our kids and would like to see it continue.
For those not familiar with DI, it is an amazing program where kids work on both instant challenges and a long term STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) based project throughout the year. They then present their projects at a Regional tournament in March. For the older competition teams, the top three placing teams at Regionals move on to state, and then potentially Globals (held in Knoxville). As a summary from the DI website, “Destination Imagination Challenges are all about fostering creativity, courage and curiosity and teaching students how to think, not what to think.” You can learn more about DI at http://www.destinationimagination.org/.
The CRES DI Teams meet on Friday’s after school and have had two meetings so far this year. All of our teams are full, but if you are interested in starting and coaching your own team, you may contact Crystal Freemon for more information.
chapmansretreatpto.com 
