UPDATED: IPEI’s Adult Spelling Bee is Sunday, March 6

It's time to sign up to spell or sponsor-- Deadline is Feb. 12!

Mark your calendars for the 18^th Annual IPEI Adult Spelling Bee on Sunday, March 6 at 2:00 p.m. at the Ithaca High School Wellness Center Gym. The Bee is a family-friendly community event with 28 spelling bee teams - three team members each - as well as an official pronouncer, timekeeper, and judges.

Free and open to the public, it is the Ithaca Public Education Initiative (IPEI)’s signature fundraising event raising funds for IPEI grants for Ithaca City School District (ICSD) teachers. Last year over $90,000 in grants was awarded for projects that enhance the education of ICSD students.

This fun-filled gathering draws a large crowd of all ages eager to watch the teams of spellers representing local businesses, schools, and community groups. This year there will be a play area available for children accompanied by a parent or caregiver, and a photo booth for both teams and spectators. Team costumes are encouraged, and cheering sections rally the competitors as the teams battle it out to make it to the championship round vying for the Fuzzy Bee trophy.

This year’s Bee will pilot a spelling competition format based on the Bozeman School Foundation, Montana. With this new approach, teams in each round will be given the same words to spell at the same time, and the pace of spelling is expected to increase.

Thanks to the Bee’s event sponsors, all other proceeds go directly toward funding IPEI grants for teachers.  The Blue Ribbon Champion Sponsor is Chemung Canal Trust Company, and the Red Ribbon Finalist Sponsor is Wells Fargo Financial Advisors. Sciarabba Walker and Cayuga Radio Group are Gold Ribbon Sponsors.

Spelling Bee team entry fees (minimum $400 each) are paid by local businesses and organizations or by the spellers themselves who can choose to use the GiveGab peer-to-peer fundraising format set up by IPEI. Online registration is available as well as entry form documents that can be downloaded from Spelling Bee Events page at www.IPEI.org. 

Throughout the event and starting at 1:30 p.m. when the doors open, there’s a silent auction and other ways for event spectators to participate. In advance of the Bee, advertisements can be purchased in the event program, and spellers will be seeking community support.

Tickets for a quilt raffle can be purchased on March 6, or in advance at PTA meetings; Cat’s Pajamas; Boynton Middle, DeWitt Middle and Ithaca High School winter music concerts; and the IPEI office. The quilt that has been created by retired teachers and friends of IPEI (Peggy Hill, Connie Patterson, Judy Steele and Marcie Wyant) and will be on display at DeWitt Mall during Gallery Night on February 5.

Contact the Spelling Bee Committee, ipei@ipei.org to get involved or with questions. The chair is Jennifer Biloski, jbiloski@twcny.rr.com, 607-227-1905.

"Print as Language" Grant Resulted in Art about Freedom

In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Day, IPEI is sharing the recent Red and Gold Grant activities of Kari Krakow, Ithaca High School teacher of “English as Native Language”. "Print as Language” activities about the art of printmaking included work with the Johnson Museum of Art educators at the Cornell museum and in their Ithaca High classroom. Krakow planned for her students “to prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.”

The project culminated with their printed posters about Human Rights being hung throughout Ithaca High to publicize messages about freedom, and submitted to 2015 Human Rights Art Competition coordinated by the Tompkins County Office of Human Rights and the Dorothy Cotton Institute.

The 28th Annual Human Rights Art Competition encouraged students in grades kindergarten through 12 to explore issues central to universal—civil, political, economic, social and cultural—rights. The United Nations’ 30 Articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights served as inspiration for this year’s artists.

BJM Girls Learn Wellness through Yoga and Art with IPEI Grant

Ten girls, ages eight to ten, sit quietly, knee-to-knee, in a circle under tall windows in Beverly J. Martin Elementary (BJM) School’s music room just before dusk on a winter day. Marie Vitucci, BJM enrichment coordinator and children’s yoga teacher, sits in the circle and leads the group in an exercise in which they breathe in, then out, exhaling the word “peace.” She then asks the students to visualize a “yoga star,” instructing them to put it in their pocket to access anytime they need to be calm and present.

After a closing “Namaste,” the girls rise and grab large sketchpads, placing them by their socked feet, as teaching artist Stiller Zusman guides them through various positions and movements that they will soon draw.  “Our mission here is to draw ourselves from the inside out,” Zusman tells the students who float gently around the classroom to soothing music, then “freeze” every so often to sketch with crayons their poses by recalling the energy of their previous movements.    

Such activities are part of a four-week program called “Art then Yoga,” designed by Vitucci, Zusman, and Melissa Enns, a social worker at BJM, to help develop self-assurance and positive self-image among young girls. Participants are enrolled in A+ Extended Day, an afterschool program at BJM, and attend two art and yoga sessions per week. It is funded by an Ithaca Public Education Initiative (IPEI) Red and Gold Grant and supports the the Ithaca City School District (ICSD)’s health curriculum by encouraging physical activity and wellness within the school day and beyond. Red and Gold Grants are one-time awards of up to $500 for projects that strengthen and enrich learning in the ICSD.  

"We applied for the grant because we know that yoga and figure drawing can help girls focus on their inner selves and increase their self-esteem and confidence.” The idea, Zusman noted in their grant application, is to introduce a drawing technique “where each child’s awareness of their physical self is the reference for their images.” Further, she said: “The children's attention is directed to their balance, tension, relationship to gravity, and posture; and this becomes the basis for their drawings. This is a well-known trick in art for accurate, lively figures. It is also a great practice for improving self-awareness.”   

This art aspect, Vitucci added, is a “natural partner with yoga, which is also a practice of internal reference.” Vitucci’s yoga teachings during the grant program focus on increasing self-awareness, positive energy, and core strength essential for body alignment.

After just a couple weeks into the program, Vitucci said she noticed a high level of enthusiasm. “The girls ask all week for art and yoga class,” she said. “The group seems to be starting to become an entity. The girls are learning with each other. There seems to be acceptance and letting down of guards. They also seem to want to follow Stiller's lead and just move gracefully feeling how their bodies work. I am really enjoying this so far! It’s so unique.”

The grant project also includes a communications component in which Enns discusses topics around self-esteem and healthy lifestyles with the participating girls throughout the school day in an effort to help them connect what they learn in the grant program to their regular day. Enns said the girls have responded positively.

“They all report loving it, and learning a lot about yoga and drawing,” she said. “They really enjoy moving their bodies around and then getting in poses that they draw, as well as drawing their bodies inside out. One student said she is learning how to focus on her body and that can teach her how to focus more in school. Another student said that she learns how to get calm, which can help her when she feels angry at school. Another stated that she is going to share things she does to relax with the group next week, and she is excited to do that.”

The grant recipients hope to expand this pilot program to serve more students in the future. “We think that combining the mindful practices of yoga and figure drawing with the opportunities to communicate issues that come at school will help the participants become more successful in school and life.”  

IPEI is a community-based not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization that develops supportive community and private sector relationships with the Ithaca City School District. Founded in 1996, IPEI is committed to connecting school and community through collaboration, engagement, gifts and grants.  For more information, visit www.ipei.org or contact 256-IPEI (4734).

 By Heather Zimar, IPEI Public Relations Committee member and ICSD parent