Tuesday, June 21, 2022

Gaining Ground - Food for Families Market


Information about the Gaining Ground Food for Families Market

*Please read carefully, there are qualifying procedures in order to participate in this program. 

Gaining Ground, a nonprofit organic farm in Concord grows vegetables and fruit with the help of several thousand community volunteers and donates all of this fresh food to area meal programs and food pantries. In short, they grow food and give it away to people who need it. For free. This refreshingly simple approach lets them focus on meeting the needs of volunteers and the people they help feed.

Gaining Ground will run its Food for Families program from June 18 through October 1, 2022, rain or shine. This program is meant for those who have the greatest need and can benefit from the generosity of Gaining Ground to have access to fresh produce. For additional information about Gaining Ground please visit https://gainingground.org/.

"We envision a future where everyone has equitable access to healthy, sustainably grown produce."

- The Gaining Ground Community


*** IMPORTANT ***

This is NOT a drop-in anytime program, and there are specific qualifying procedures in order to participate. Interested individuals should contact Bonny Wilbur, the Town of Concord Community Services Coordinator,  at bwilbur@concordma.gov or 978-318-3034 as a next step to participate in this program.




Wednesday, June 15, 2022

Unified Track, USRowing, Eagle Scouts, Concord Center for the Arts, Mihir Lennox, Coding Club, Campus Clean Up, & Underclassmen Awards,

Congratulations to all of the recipients of the awards highlighted below. Well-deserved recognition for our impressive students. The good news, we have so many talented students worthy of recognition. The bad news, we have so many gifted students worthy of recognition, and not every student deserving of an award receives one. Department members select award recipients, and high honors are awarded to all eligible students who earned high honors status for all three terms.

The Class Act Awards recognize graduating seniors who volunteered over 100 hours of their time in their careers at CCHS. I applaud the efforts of our students. Their contribution to a cause near and dear to their hearts has undoubtedly left a lasting impact, thanks to their time, effort, energy, and enthusiasm.  

Further, I want to thank all the parents and community members, particularly the individuals associated with 2Volunteer. Thanks to the 2volunteer board members: Martha Hammer, Jen Clark, David Holdorf, Ann Trudeau, Ann Sgarzi, & Court Booth. Their assistance in helping students become active members of their community, along with our students' efforts, has significantly impacted our communities and society at large. Well done. 

Department Awards and High Honors Recipients

Class Act Awards 2022

Congratulations to all Class Act Award recipients for 2022! Our students consistently demonstrate a commitment to serving their community. 

Complete list of student winners

Rotary Club of Concord The Rotary Club of Concord recognizes the contribution of young people in our schools and rewards them for Community Service, Integrity, Kindness, Leadership, and Civic Responsibility. Each club and sport at CCHS has an opportunity to choose their award recipients, as nominated by their group advisors or coaches.

President’s Volunteer Service Awards  2Volunteer, the Concord-Carlisle community-based organization which assists CCHS in its Community Service program, is a designated certifying organization for the President’s Volunteer Service Award.  The Award is given by the Points of Light Foundation, as inspired by George H.W. Bush, to recognize the best in American spirit and to encourage Americans to improve their communities through volunteer service and civic participation.  

Students are eligible for consideration for this award if they have demonstrated outstanding community service over the course of any consecutive 12-month period.  The Young Adult (service completed at age 16 or older) 

  • Bronze Award is given for 100-174 hours of service
  • Silver Award for 175-249 hours
  • Gold Award for 250 or more hours.  
The Teen (service completed before age 16) 

  • Bronze Award is given for 50-74 hours of service
  • Silver Award for 75-99 hours of service
  • Gold Award for 100 or more hours of service.

Concord-Carlisle Community Chest    Awards are given by the Concord-Carlisle Community Chest to CCHS students who have demonstrated initiative and commitment to an organization or a volunteer project within the area of direct human services.  The recipients are selected by the Community Chest Board of Directors.

Maureen Taggert Award  This award is given to a CCHS senior who exhibits exemplary community service participation in Recreation Department programs.  It is named in honor of a beloved Concord Recreation employee who lifelong gave selflessly of her time.

NEADS Award  The National Education for Assistance Dog Services trains service dogs to help individuals with disabilities, and is interested in service in general to the disabled.  The Award is given to a member of the junior or senior class who has demonstrated exemplary community service in the area of working with individuals with disabilities.

National Merit Scholarship Program

Congratulations to the 2022 finalists of the National Merit Scholarship Program. Over 1.5 million juniors in about 21,000 high schools entered the 2022 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2020 PSAT. 

34,000 are commended students and 15,000 are National Merit Finalists. An impressive accomplishment from our impressive students.    

Marco Brunette

Henry Vlacovsky

Joshua Zhang

Unified Track

CCHS hosts the first-ever Unified Track and Field meet.  The support from the boys/girls track team, faculty, and CC students was overwhelming and means a lot to our Unified athletes and mentors.  It is an honor to coach this team and heartwarming to see the inclusion in athletics and the impact it has across the CCHS community.  Thank you to everyone for your support!  

- Josh Reed, Coach





USRowing Youth Nationals Championships

Congratulations to CCHS' own Nora Molten and Lizzie Hedeman who won the Bronze medal in the final round of the Women's Youth 4x at the USRowing Youth National Championships in Sarasota, Florida! With 778 total entries, this year's event was the largest ever and featured over 3,500 high school and junior athletes from 210 programs competing for titles in 34 boat classes. Congratulations Nora, Lizzie, and fellow rowers for this outstanding achievement! 




Eagle Scouts

Congratulations to Ben Sprague and Henry Vlacovsky (class of 2022) for attaining the rank of Eagle Scout, a distinction earned by only 8% of all Scouts, from Massachusetts' Spirit of Adventure Council, Troop 132!

Becoming an Eagle Scout involves much more than earning at least 21 merit badges (e.g. cooking and first-aid) and mastering outdoor skills like fire-building and knot-tying. Scouts must also demonstrate leadership skills that they learn “on the job” by taking on a variety of leadership positions. Ben and Henry each worked their way to the top starting in roles such as Troop Guide and Quartermaster and ultimately serving terms as the Senior Patrol Leader, the highest youth leadership position in the troop overseeing all of the troop activities. 

For the Eagle project, the Scout works with a sponsor organization of their choice to develop a project idea, write a proposal, attain approvals, plan and, ultimately, oversee a team of volunteers in carrying out the project. Ben led a project to update the trail signs at Great Meadows National Wildlife Reserve in Concord, including fundraising and replacing 20 signposts, and installing 90 signs. For his Eagle Scout project, Henry worked with Concord-Carlisle Youth Baseball and the Town of Concord and built a baseball scoreboard for Emerson field.

In addition to completing the numerous requirement for the Eagle Scout rank, during their time in Scouting, they have also enjoyed several challenging high-adventure trips where they have camped, backpacked, paddled, sailed, and biked throughout much of New England as well as New Mexico, Florida and the C&O Canal Towpath near Washington DC. At their recent Eagle Court of Honor, both Ben and Henry specifically noted the great impact that scouting had on them, including learning valuable outdoor and leadership skills and having fun with friends.

Congratulations to Ben and Henry for this remarkable achievement!




Concord Center for the Arts Scholarship Award Winners

Congratulations to the four CCA scholarship winners: Abigail Ogden, Melia Cook-Wright, Rowan Potter, and Josh White!

There were many incredible senior portfolios on display, 21 in all. Seniors exhibiting included: Elliot Chapman, Jennifer Colbert, Anne Wiener, Samara Reid, Sarah Daniel, Grace Paradis, Zinnya Dew Venus, Madeleine Pitas, Francis Davies, Emeline Tubbs, Rebecca Sutter, Colin Cuypers, Abby Bodenrader, Lainey Volz, Mia Comeau, Katheryn De Vincent, Sameeha Khan.


Here are the winners and the remarks from the Concord Center for the Arts Jury: 

Joshua White

In these oversized photo portraits, the artist’s love of the craft and process of using film and enthusiasm for the subject is captured. These pictures tell stories about a cross section of very different individuals. Including specific details and capturing expressions make them interesting and makes the viewer want to keep looking. To make appealing photographs like this, to create that kind of intrigue isn’t easy. We admired that the student approached strangers and recognizes that the act of photographing someone you don’t know often lends universal humanity, a trait we find in great photographs. Despite being unknown to the photographer, they are intimate, revealing a real person and a real moment in a life. The camera in this artist’s hands is very honest, open and judgement free. There is sincere interest in the subject/person and the story that their face tells.




Rowan Potter

The jury admired this student’s daily drawing practice. Drawing every day is ambitious and rewarding!!! This student is getting a taste for the life of an artist, and artists have been using daily practices like this one for centuries both to gain skill as well as to work through emotion – these two elements of skill and feeling work together to make good art! We were impressed with this artist’s statement; it’s mature, honest and sincere. Putting in the hours has the greatest reward – the creation of sensitive renderings. The lines and shading contours are all really well-executed, but the best part is that the artist’s unique style is consistent throughout the portfolio.  The use of a light pink overlay on the hand is a lovely detail visually and symbolically softening the feeling. The eye framed by hands and figures underscore the simple tools that drawing requires. We also loved the flights into surrealism as a way to express these strange dream-like times we are living in.




Melia Cook-Wright

The cityscape watercolor stood out to our jurors for its bold use of color, pattern and texture imbued with a little folkloric magic. Reminiscent of Marsden Hartley’s dark outlines, Hopper’s moody empty street scenes, and Milton Avery’s use of color and surface appeal, this scene has real feeling. There is something unique about the joy in pattern in this and all the artist’s work, like the hourglass portrait! The woodblock print is excellent as well – those buildings vibrant with a great use of black and white, angles and volumes, shifting perspectives – it’s alive.  Handmade objects and age-old techniques like basket weaving are very popular right now because of their focus on process and utility. It’s great to see this practice on the high school level. Lovely patterns, a good color sense, and simple pleasing volumes dictate in this body of work.  There is a uniform aesthetic despite the different mediums. The model, Soul Station is intriguing – is it a possible future establishment? A kind of dream or aspiration? This work made us happy – it’s authentic, fun, peaceful, and joyful. Perhaps we have a budding architect, urban planner, basket weaver, painter, printmaker, and furniture designer!




Abigail Ogden

This artist’s work resonates on so many levels.  The project is well thought out and executed. There was also the fact that none of us had ever seen this done before!  It’s a brand new technique and process for us – creating intricate photo sculptures; thus we were really impressed by the creative thinking involved in building this new vehicle for expression. The concise, well-crafted, flawless construction of origami cranes really stood out.  Careful planning and composition in each bird to fold just-so in order to get the right images on the wings must have been difficult. Happiness, good fortune, and longevity have been associated with the origami crane, and so what a fitting vehicle for this artist to use the crane to deal with her struggles. The themes on each bird's back reflect nature and friendships progressing from dark to light throughout a period of the artist’s life. We also really liked the artist’s statement – writing about making mistakes because as every artist knows, embracing and “refolding” mistakes is where creativity and learning starts.



Congratulations Mihir Lennox

Mihir Lennox's poem that was entered into the Young Writers' Contest - Pandemic Poetry: Futures of Hope, was selected as the overall winner!  While many students from CCHS were published in the poetry book, Mihir's poem won against all of the entries from all of the schools combined (Contests held by the Young Writers program usually have upwards of 8,000 student entries!). You can check out Mihir's poem here.





Coding Club


Led by Chris Bao, the CCHS Coding Club participated this year in the American Computer Science League (ACSL) online competitions, the first time ever for CCHS. ACSL runs team contests where students show their knowledge of programming, digital logic, and other computer science concepts. Competing this year were Neven Johnson, Isaac Pelenur, Matthew Qian, Brandon Li, Ben Megan, along with Ludwig Tay, and Kenneth Cobbs.  We had three finalists this year: Ben Megan, Matthew Qian, and Neven Johnson, with Matthew Qian winning bronze in the finals.






A Huge Thank You to Class Government


Thank you, Class Government, for keeping CCHS' campus looking beautiful with your huge Spring Cleanup! There were approximately 60 CCHS students who came to volunteer and also partnered with High Street Lawn Unlimited LLC, created by former class of 2021 CCHS graduates. Thank you!