08/14/2026
For the last five weeks, 34 students, 5 summer youth employees and many staff and volunteers turned Oakwood into a Wonderland. Our journey included learning sewing and puppet making and puppetering, a trip to NYC to see the Lion King on Broadway among many more field trips, and time spent playing together in our own back yard. Our students put on two nights of ALICE IN WONDERLAND, with four dance numbers, full set and costumes they created.
We are so grateful to Makeda Greene who cooked breakfast and lunch for at least 40 students and staff every day. We're grateful for Rags, Ms. Rachael, Ms. Sam, Ms. Genesis, Ms. Rae, and of course Mr. Justin. Special thanks to Ms. Martha who came and gardened with us, Susan Preiss for helping us step up our lighting game again, the East Greenbush School District for getting us a sound system, and Frank Moskowitz for taking time to patiently teach our student sound engineer how to run mics for our show!
We're thrilled at how our young people learned new skills, including Madeline who stole the show as the puppeteer for the door mouse in a teapot, Makaili who (at 14) worked the soundboard with 20 students wearing mics, Rosie who drew the art for our poster/playbill and worked with our admin coordinator Connor to turn that art into a final product, and Xavier who has now worked the lightboard twice. These are all really powerful skills that all these young people can take with them. We are so grateful to our community who comes and shares their expertise and their time!!!!
