Support the Chess Team from Brooklyn Castle!

Funded Jul 27, 2013

Everyday when I see how hard my students work despite the challenges in their lives it brings me joy that I work with a tremendously talented hard-working dedicated and supremely intelligent group of young people on our chess team. I hope many you have seen the movie Brooklyn Castle and caught a glimpse into the lives of my students. Your support makes it possible to continue the good work of challenging students to achieve at the highest level. We had a tremendously successful year and were 6th and 7th grade national chess champions once again. Our girls traveled to Chicago and won the national championship for girls in April! We proved that despite your circumstances, any student can be taught to rise above and accomplish great things. There are so many examples of students who are empowered through our chess program and I would like to share just one. One of the new sixth grade girls on our team lost her mother at an early age last year. She was not exactly a superstar in chess when she came to the school and was still acquiring English language skills as a recent immigrant. One day I noticed that she was sitting quietly intently reading a chess problem book. When I asked her how she was doing she said that she had decided that her mom would have wanted her to work hard and to be the best at whatever she tried to do. Work hard, she did and she became one of the leaders on our girls champion team 6 months later. Her schoolwork excelled to the point where she was placed in an accelerated class for her seventh grade year! There are so many kids like that on my team. Each has their own story of accomplishment.

When I told students about all of the support we had received from complete strangers they were overwhelmed. Your support of the students on my team made our success possible. We share our championships with you. You too were part of our team! On behalf of the students who you have allowed their dreams to come true, thank you..”

With gratitude,

Mr. Galvin