Building Athletic Spirit: Middle School Soccer
In his third season as the volunteer coach for Mount Madonna School’s (MMS) middle school soccer program, parent Carson Kelly (Zoe, 9th, Indigo, 6th, and Cecily, 1st) remains committed to inspiring his young players to stay focused, play hard, and have fun!
“I like being able to provide MMS with an additional sport for the kids to participate in,” Carson explains. “It is important for kids to wear a jersey with their school’s name on it, and go out and participate on a school-based team. Our team this year has great athletic spirit, coupled with a positive attitude and strong desire to learn!”
Quiz question:
For nonprofit organizations, determining how to creatively and successfully meet annual fundraising goals can be difficult and time-consuming – and frequently not a lot of fun. With the dual intent of putting the “fun” back in “fundraising” and bringing together other local nonprofit organizations – including, educational, environmental, and youth-focused groups – Mount Madonna School (MMS) is again hosting its annual community walk-a-thon and celebration –a family event intended to make fundraising as easy as a walk in the park!.jpg)
Sitting near containers filled with assorted plastic K’Nex and Lego Mindstorm pieces, two seventh grade girls laugh as they put the finishing touches on their robot creation, and joke about what to name it. Nearby, other students concentrate on working with the program software and syncing it to correctly control their robot.
Standing in front of the class, the sandy-haired boy shuffles his feet, avoiding eye contact with the middle school students seated before him. He looks up, shyly meets his classmates’ gaze, and takes a deep breath. Exhaling, he begins telling a story in Spanish. The words come haltingly at first, then, as his confidence improves, he relaxes and expands his vocabulary, exploring different sentence structures and verb conjugations..jpg)
“Okay, let’s be honest. We’re in middle school, so we’re not adults and we’re not little kids either. By term, we’re somewhere in between. That can be annoying.” 
“Bravo! Bravo!” said the smiling older gentleman, as he stood and clapped for the assembled students as they finished each song. The students – approximately 45 middle schoolers from Mount Madonna School (MMS) – visited the Senior Center in Morgan Hill on December 1, to spread a little cheer and sing some well-known holiday carols.
