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By Laura Drinan
Hometown Weekly Reporter
Sherborn’s Pine Hill School has many traditions, but there is one that the town’s seniors particularly enjoy: the annual senior trip to the school.
For the past seven years, Pine Hill has invited members of the community to visit their school for a catered lunch and a chorus concert from the fifth grade students. Many of the seniors have been returning each year to listen to the elementary students, joined by new listeners from the COA.
“It’s really grown since the first year,” said Pine Hill’s music teacher, Kelly Hodge. “We had, like, five people, and this year I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh! We need more chairs!’”
The seniors socialized as they ate and even had time for a game of cards before the students shuffled into the auditorium and took their places on the risers. They performed some of their favorite songs that they have learned in chorus, including one in Swahili, “The MTA Song,” and Bruno Mars’ “Count on Me.”
After the concert, the students sat on the risers and asked the seniors questions about what their lives were like when they were 11 years old.
“I try to get [the fifth graders] all psyched up, and I do a mini presentation in my classroom about what to expect, and I polled them on the questions,” Hodge said.
The questions included ones about how school was in the mid 1950s, what their favorite song was when they were younger, and what school cafeteria food was like. Through their question-and-answer time, the students discovered that some of the seniors in attendance have been living in Sherborn for over 70 years.
“The whole theme of it is just about community outreach, and there’s so many elderly people who live in Sherborn and pay property taxes, and this is where a lot of their money goes, because the school is such a big deal,” said Hodge.
“That’s one of the reasons I wanted to make it happen because people should be seeing what’s happening at this school and some of the things we do and meeting the kids. People love living in Sherborn, but I think this is evidence and shows what these kids’ education is like and what they’re doing every day.”
