Happy Tuesday! 
As promised I have some news about our plan to celebrate our dear friend Pat Shimo!
As you all know, we lost our dear friend and co-work Pat Shimo last May.
When Pat passed away, we promised our Fell Family that we would plan a celebration of life for Pat and make sure that we could all participate in the celebration. He valued all of your friendships and your dedication to Fell Charter, more than you know. His success as our Head of Facilities (caregiver!) was due to his ability to make meaningful and long-lasting friendships, and he always stayed honest and passionate about our school.
We will be celebrating Pat on Friday, May 13th beginning at 12:30 p.m. We know that Pat would appreciate us choosing Friday the 13th…he loved a quirky plan!
We will be dedicating our school gymnasium to his name: Pat Shimo Hall.
We will be playing baseball (his favorite game): students versus staff in a wiffle ball baseball game (in the field to the left of our entrance). Keeping with the theme of baseball we will be serving hot dogs and snacks (and water) to our students first, then offering them to our guests. The hot dogs have been donated by one of our parents (Thank You!). We have designed a unique “trophy” that we are sure Pat would love, for the winning baseball team to have until next year when we play ball again!
I invite you to be a part of our day. We will be starting at 12:30 p.m. with the naming of the gymnasium. Many of you have asked how you can help, I have a few needs (see below).
a). Because of the amount of limited space we have, we have made arrangements for parking to be off site. We cannot accommodate our staff, Pat’s family who are attending, vendors who will be dropping items off/making donations and ensuring the safety of our students unless we make these arrangements.
b). One of our local residents, who worked with Pat has graciously offered to allow us to park at the old Fell School (Reservoir St.). Map will be sent later.
c). Our local bus company JW Transit has agreed to transport our guests from the old Fell School parking lot to our school. The bus will leave the old school parking lot at 12:10p.m. The driver will make one run to our school and one run back to the parking lot at 2:30 p.m. There is limited seating on the school bus, so RSVP’s will be necessary.
d). I encourage everyone to please RSVP to me by May 1 if you need a ride to our school.
e). PLEASE DO NOT PARK on Rt. 171, in neighbors yards, etc. I have contacted the Carbondale Police Department to let them know we are having an event and that we HAVE made arrangements for parking off site.
f). Our goal is for this part of our day to be as smooth as possible. Please help us make this work.
g). On the 13th please do not arrive for the afternoon pick of students until 3:00 p.m., we will not have room for arriving cars while we are letting our guests exit.
We have purchased special t-shirts for our students for that day. We will give them time to put them on before we head outside that day.
Staff will also be sporting old-fashioned baseball t-shirts as well. Both students and staff will be easily identifiable that day.
If you are interested in donating, we could always use water and ice pops (hoping it will be hot!).
Any financial donations will be put toward: t-shirts, the plaque for the outside of the hall, painting of his name for the inside of the hall and paper products. Anyone who donates will receive a donation letter for your tax preparer.
Right now we are planning to do this rain or shine. If it rains, we will make some last minute changes and send those out via email and our REMIND app.
Lastly, thank you for all you did last year to support us and our students as we worked through this devastating loss. Your help, your kind words, your willingness to let us grieve as a Fell Family made ALL the difference in us getting to the point of celebrating his life, and his love of Fell.
If you have any questions, please let me know. Please remember to RSVP to me by May 1st and thank you again for all you do for Fell!
Be well,
Miss Walsh