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By Katrina Margolis
Hometown Weekly Reporter
This year, Andrea Merritt and the Dover Sherborn Middle School Peer Leadership Club put on their second annual Raiders Rock, an event which promotes a healthy lifestyle, as well as community within the school. This year’s incarnation of the event was an even bigger success than the first year.
The idea for Raiders Rock first came to Merritt during a summer course she took in which she had to create a project to encourage community cohesiveness. Fortunately, she was able to actually implement it.
“It’s a school-wide, one mile run or walk or roll - because we have a boy who is in a wheelchair, so his friends are going to roll him around,” Merritt explained. “It’s really just to build school community. It’s students, staff, and everybody together.” Merritt runs the Peer Leadership Club along with Detective James Godinho of the Sherborn Police Department. The Club is open to all seventh and eighth graders, who focus primarily on leadership skills, drug and alcohol prevention activities, and ways to inspire peers to lead a healthy lifestyle. “I wrote this whole plan and I was like, ‘We should just do this, right?’ It was one of those things where you actually apply what you do in class,” Merritt explained excitedly.
Last year through a grant, the Club was able to give tee-shirts to everyone in the school. This year through fundraising, the Club bought enough shirts to give to the sixth grade. “They’re new to the building,” Merritt said. This way, they’ll be able to fully be a part of the event. “We set the course at one mile with the option of extending the run to two miles,” Merritt explained. “Our local police officers, Harry Grabert, who runs DARE Dover, and Detective Godinho, both ran the two miles.” In addition to the police, the Sherborn Fire Department was there to cheer on the students.
