Who your donation will support

This year St. Mary’s Home for Children is raising funds for our George N. Hunt Campus School, which provides highly-structured, individualized instruction, and therapeutic services to K-12 students with learning, social, emotional, and behavioral challenges. These are children who have been through unimaginable trauma in their lives or are dealing with a significant psychiatric illness. It’s very difficult to focus on schooling when you face large life issues as a child. These children often fall behind in their education and social, emotional learning due to life circumstances and need help in both schooling and therapeutically to get back on track so they can graduate and go on to successful adult lives. The Hunt School’s caring, involved staff help these children to make up for lost time and successfully move forward with their educations and life skills. We see success all the time – the child who can’t read when they arrive at the school learns to enjoy books, the child who doesn’t trust teachers and administrators learns that school officials are there to help them, and the child who previously showed no interest in education becomes curious and constantly seeking new information.

What your donation will support

We are seeking donations this year to provide enrichment activities and field trips to the students we serve. Many children at the Hunt School have not had opportunities that other children may have. They may have never attended an enrichment class, eaten at a restaurant, or visited a fun, local kid’s attraction. At the same time, these children often struggle with social, emotional learning and need events like these to learn and grow. The life skills developed by visiting a public kid’s attraction, taking a class, and interacting with other people are valuable experiences that help these children to grow as human beings while also providing fun and excitement. Examples of enrichment classes we want to be able to provide the children include acting, kickboxing, music, yoga, gymnastics, dance, and more. Places we’d like to take them to include The Museum of Natural History, Biomes, Mystic Aquarium, bowling, roller skating, the Music Hall of Fame, the Audubon Nature Center and Aquarium, and many more. Please consider donating to help these children both learn new life skills and get to enjoy some time away from the work of overcoming their trauma or dealing with their mental illness.