Camden-Rockport Middle School Spirit Week...

CRMS eighth-graders best teachers in epic overtime basketball fundraiser

More than $1,800 raised for robot technology that helps students stay connected from home, hospital
Fri, 02/12/2016 - 8:30pm

CAMDEN — The stands in the Camden-Rockport Middle School gymnasium were nearly filled with clapping, stomping and cheering students and parents and teachers Thursday night, as a team of eighth-graders played an exciting basketball game against a team of the school’s teachers, an annual tradition during Spirit Week ahead of February vacation week, Feb. 15-19.

This year, school nurse and school Wellness Committee chair Kristin Nelson organized the week’s activities, which included the hoops game fundraiser and a food pantry drive, among other spirited activities.

She said they always used to hold the staff game at 2:30 in the afternoon, but nobody could really come and watch at that hour.

“So this year we decided to hold it at night,” said Nelson. “I was totally surprised at how many people showed up, I had no idea it was going to be such a success and the stands were pretty much filled.”

Also this year, the school wanted to do a fundraiser for one of their students, Katherine Bowen. An eighth-grader this year, Bowen was diagnosed in March 2015 with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Following her diagnosis, Bowen endured chemotherapy and radiation before undergoing bone marrow transplant surgery in November. Between just before Thanksgiving and after Christmas, Bowen lived about six weeks at Boston Children’s Hospital and then Ronald McDonald House near the hospital.

“She just finished treatment and she’s home now, but her immune system is really suppressed so she can’t participate in school or much of anything outside her home,” said Nelson.

And that’s where “Bob” comes in. Bob is her VGo robot, which was donated to her by the Grahamtastic Connection organization. Bob keeps her in touch with her friends at school, and lets her participate in class lessons in real time by being able to listen, talk and watch the lessons from her laptop. When it’s time for Bowen to move to another class, someone picks up Bob and moves him there, and with a flick of a switch, Bowen’s smiling face can be seen in a small screen and she can peer out from a camera mounted to the front of Bob.

When the Bowen family learned that the school wanted to donate proceeds from the Feb. 11 fundraising basketball to them, Nelson said they turned it down and asked that it be directed elsewhere.

“This time, they wanted to have the money go to an organization that has supported them, and so the organization they chose for the basketball proceeds was Grahamtastic Connection,” said Nelson. “Grahamtastic furnishes technology to help keep kids stay connected to school and classmates while they are in treatment.”

Prior to learning about the VGo robot and Grahamtastic, Nelson said the school looked at other options to ensure Katherine - a voracious learner, honors-level grade earner and honors-level course student - would be able to keep up her studies when she feeling good enough. But many of the options meant she would be isolated at home, without any real, meaningful interaction on a regular basis.

“The robot is a nice way to achieve it all,” said Nelson. “This is really something that every school should have for when they have a student that is going to be out for a little while, whether they are battling something as serious as Katherine, or recovering from surgery or something similar.”

Nelson said she marvels at Bowen’s strength and dedication to school, among other things.

“She comes to all her classes she is able to and she’s a really hard worker. I mean, here is a kid who can’t go to school and she wants to tune in and be there all the time,” said Nelson. “So many kids complain about going to school or being in school, but when you take something like that away, they don’t realize how much they actually miss it.”

Thursday’s night’s game was an intense, competitive battle, and both teams worked hard moving back and forth on defense and offense up and down the court. There was a suggested donation of $5 to watch the game, and points for either team could be purchased for $1 each.

Bowen was there in the stands, via Bob, watching all the action with everybody else. She has the ability to turn Bob to and fro, and at times it was dizzying to watch the robot go back-and-forth as Bowen worked to keep up with the action from her home in Rockport.

Hot off their visit to the Maine Hall of Flags in Augusta earlier this week, the Camden-Rockport Elementary Jump Rope Team Skippers performed a half-time routine that included single boy and girl jumpers in small groups, then doubles, triples, quadruples, double dutch and a square that had so many Skippers hopping and skipping it was hard to count them all. 

After the basketball game resumed, and at the two-minute warning, point-purchasing ended and it was up to the players to finish the battle and either make up their team’s deficit or hold on to their lead, depending on which side they were on.

When the final bell sounded, it was a solid tie - 483 to 483. (The high scores were due to the volume of points purchased by the spectators during the actual game, pushing the scores up throughout the game.)

Both teams then lined up and shook hands, and then stood near their benches. That’s when the spectators in the stands began chanting, “Overtime! Overtime! Overtime!,” prompting the student team to join in.

The teachers conferred for a moment, and with the referees and timers willing to let the teams vie for a tie-breaker, two minutes were put on the clock and the game resumed where it left off.

The teachers earned a one-point free throw basket, but the eighth-graders ultimately earned four more points and held the lead, winning the game 487 to 484.

Later that night, when the stands were cleared and most everyone had gone home, Nelson collected the money tallies for the door, the point purchases and the concession sales, and knew there was an even bigger winner out of the night.

“Friday morning I made the announcement to the school that we had made $1,811 for Grahamtastic Connection and everybody cheered,” said Nelson. “Everybody was really pleased and pumped up today, and the eighth-grade athletes who played the game were so supportive and really gave their all to play a great game.”

And if that weren’t enough, students made life a little easier for local residents by donating 829 food items to the Camden Area Christian Food Pantry Friday. Nelson said the donations had been collected by each class during Spirit Week, in anticipation of Friday’s delivery to the pantry.

“It was a happy, happy, busy week this week,” said Nelson. “And we’re all ready now for vacation next week.”


Reach Editorial Director Holly S. Edwards at hollyedwards@penbaypilot.com and 207-706-6655.