Happy Holidays and Bring on 2021 from the HSA

December 23, 2020

Dear SWWHS Community,

The HSA wishes our community of educators, families, and friends Happy Holidays and restful Winter Break. We hope you will enjoy time with loved ones and heed the CDC's recommendation to celebrate "virtually or with members of your own household (who are consistently taking measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19)" to avoid the risk of COVID-19 infections. Thank you for taking care of yourselves and each other.

Gratitude

We are SO grateful for your support in what has been an incredibly challenging year. Hundreds of families and staff have pitched in your time and money in support of our community. You have also shown up to meet each other at small gatherings, town halls, advocacy meetings, marches and protests, LSAT meetings, a teen stress management discussion, coffee chats, trivia nights, and even an election night toast.

Teachers and Staff - we thank you for supporting Walls families while also managing the same stresses Walls students and families face. We see you and appreciate you.

Pride

We are SO proud of our students, who inspire us every day with your compassion, advocacy, creativity, leadership and hard work. You are confronting unprecedented difficulties, advocating for yourselves, reaching out to friends old and new, and coming together in clubs and teams, applying to universities and scholarships, creating, building, and being "there" for each other. We swoon each time we get to share your accomplishments via Penguin Pride posts - keep them coming. We see you and love you.

Giving Back to Our Communities

We hope you will consider volunteering for or donating to organizations actively supporting our neighbors in need across the city. If you're not sure where to start, we recommend the DC Mutual Aid Network. Below are contact information by Ward:

Ward 1: https://www.patreon.com/W1MutualAid
Ward 2: bit.ly/W2MutualAid
Ward 3: https://opencollective.com/ward3mutualaid
Ward 4: volunteer --- donate
Ward 5: http://bit.ly/Ward5MutualAid
Ward 6 (Serve Your City): https://www.serveyourcitydc.org/
Ward 7 & 8: http://tinyurl.com/EORVolunteer

Putting 2020 Behind Us With a Little Fun

Finally, we want to end by thanking the students and staff who helped us "flush 2020 goodbye" with a trivia party yesterday - 5 very competitive, smack-talking teams formed.

Congratulations to Team "Knowledge is Coming To Town" featuring Aidan Burns (Class of 2022), Mr. Kopliku, Mr. Willoughby, and Tully Hochhausler (Class of 2022). Look out for your sashes!