STudents in George P. Vanier's Destination Imagination teams. (Healey photo)

FALL RIVER: They may not have won, but a third team from George P. Vanier Junior High School had the opportunity to attend the Global Destination Imagination (DI) Challenge thanks to the fundraising efforts of their fellow schoolmates.
Two of the Fall River-based school’s DI teams, the DIamonds and Swine Flew Crew, picked up first place in their respective categories and the right to attend the Global DI Challenge in Knoxville, Tenn. held May 26-30.
The third team, the Yellow Submarines finished in second place behind the DIamonds in the You’re Gonna Flip division, meaning they wouldn’t be headed to the competition. Or so they though.
However, since they were so close to winning, the school felt they should attend the event and began brainstorming ideas on how they could make that happen.
Program supervisor Bhreagh MacDonald spoke with the school principal about the chances of having the third team attend. She said no question they would see to it and then began the fundraising for the trip.
The two winning teams are sponsored by the Halifax Regional School Board (HRSB) to go to the challenge south of the border.
The community has come out in leaps and bounds with sponsors ranging from the school, a dessert night fundraiser, big box retail stores, a local cardiovascular doctor, a pet grooming and environmental company, to Jerry and Annette Murphy and the Halifax International Airport Authority. To attend the event, it costs $1,500 per student.
“We’re such a big team we decided we would fundraise and take all three teams down,” MacDonald said. “We’ve had a lot of donations coming in. We’re picking away at it.”
Destination Imagination is an educational after-school program that sees teams solving challenges based on problem-solving, team work, thinking outside the box and using creativity. The teams then perform those challenges at local tournaments, which is how the two teams earned the right to go to the Global DI Challenge.
You’re Gonna Flip is a contest focused on drama, acting, and creativity. The challenge was to create an eight-minute play featuring a homemade puppet.
“The main character had to experience a flip of some sort in personality,” Ashley Stephenson said.
“The whole play had to meet guidelines, like its length, making the puppet from scratch without the teacher’s help,” Emily Siepierski added.
Siepierski, Stephenson, Winter Muise, Emily Moser, Georgia Edwards and Amy Pascher made up the DIamonds.
In the team’s play, Siepierski played the role of a princess.
“She was very selfish in her magical land of Zeebo,” Stephenson explained. “The wizard takes her to New York City and gives her a little reality check. She then becomes more selfless.”
The Swine Flew Crew’s challenge was a little more difficult and was judged differently, Tristan Maxwell said. His team included James Hindler, Garrett Bates and Emma Vanleer. Their project was titled Breaking DI News.
“There was a bit more to it,” Maxwell said. “What we had to do was make a play, but ours didn’t have to have puppets. It was to be about a newsworthy event that didn’t happen in our country.”
The Breaking DI News team’s story was about LuLu, a Vietnamese potbellied pig that saved the life of her owner who was having a heart attack.
He said that caused the team some difficulty because of not hearing about news that is happening in places like Britain. They were thinking of basing their play on the Russian terrorists attacks, however changed their minds.
“We wanted to focus on something a bit lighter,” Maxwell explained.
The third You’re Gonna Flip team, nicknamed the Yellow Submarines, includes Matthew Larter, Lyvia Graham, Max Bujold, Meaghan Butt and Gracie MacDonald.
“At the tournament they left very sad, but worked so hard,” MacDonald said. “Everybody was excited, but also disappointed. At that time we didn’t have a plan for them to come. But we discussed how we could get the third team to go.”
When they found out they would be going, Larter said he couldn’t contain the excitement.
“I was just excited that we could go and grateful that the other teams had been kind enough to bring that idea forward,” Larter added. “I was also pleased that the school staff was willing to help make sure this opportunity to allow us as the third team to attend the global challenge could happen.”
phealey@enfieldweeklypress.com