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By Stephen Press
Hometown Weekly Staff
The American flag flapped in a crisp brisk breeze over Hillside Elementary's full parking lot. In the distance, from the direction of the schoolyard, sounds echoed of children laughing and chattering. Were it not for the intoxicating smell of popcorn that lingered in the air, one might be convinced that this was just another school day.
It was anything but, of course.
Last Saturday, June 12, was Hillside Elementary's annual Spring Carnival, and the schoolyard had been transformed into an amusement park for the day. The Carnival, a fundraiser for the Hillside Parent Teacher Council, is a favorite of both parents and kids alike. This year's edition, it fortuitously turned out, had been scheduled on a picture-perfect Saturday.
The glorious day was not lost on Tricia Sherman, Co-Chair (with Jillian Erdos) of the Spring Carnival. "Thank. Goodness," she emphatically said of the ideal weather before distilling the Carnival down to its basics. "It's an end-of-the-year celebration, really," she remarked. "It really supports all the amazing projects the school does. It's very innovative. We do all these different things that the kids would not be able to have access to if it weren't for events like this."
It was difficult to reconcile the word "innovative" with so much good old-fashioned fun taking place around her. As is par for the course for any good carnival, a cotton candy stand lent its fairground ambience to the proceedings. Not far away, Barn Babies, a mobile petting zoo filled with baby animals, had set up shop. There was a rocking Viking ship, an inflatable "moonwalk," the Spider (a sort of modified Tilt-a-Whirl), an inflatable obstacle course, and more attractions and games.
The innovation itself, it seems, is reserved for the classrooms - and there's quite a bit of that. Proceeds from the event go into a PTC fund that pays for various enrichment activities, explained Joanna Herrera and Erin Apstein, next year's PTC co-presidents. Among these activities are the creative arts program, an author-in-residence program (in which an author spends a week conducting workshops at Hillside), the Art Quest and Living Voices programs, tipi-building with Dan Cripps, and many more.
It doesn't stop there, though. One didn't need to look any further than the two soccer goals that sat unassumingly behind the "fairground" for an example of the PTC's funding at work. The PTC also funds field trips, awards grants to teachers for individual projects, and vigorously supports other enrichment around the school.
Just don't tell the kids who'd come to Hillside for a blithe Saturday.
"It's been a great day," said Dick Videnheimer, whose son, Jay, casually rocked a playground swing a few feet away. "It's fun to have the kids out here playing around at their school. It's community. It's a lot of fun."
Co-President Herrera, looking over the successful day, couldn't help but echo the sentiments herself. "Needham is such a great community and the families care so much about education here," she said. "This shows what a great, close-knit community Hillside is."
