Photo credit – Diane Caudullo
Build a tower, a car, and a robot out of Legos. That was the challenge for the night.
The bigger challenge, however, is to create an overall environment where our children can grow strong emotionally and mentally. Our children today are struggling in many ways and some sadly may consider permanent solutions to temporary problems.
One seemingly simple-sounding solution is to make sure our children have family, friends, or trusted adults around them to be there when a child finds themselves troubled and in need of some loving, wise and careful attention. Finding someone to walk alongside them and listen to them is always a good start.
How do you foster this kind of overall environment?
You create events that encourage kids of all ages to get their friends or their families or both together and get out into the community to do fun things.
The Christopher A. Coluccio Foundation is working to do just that, planning the events so everyone can have fun and connect with others.
Their latest event was the Lego “Create and Elevate” Building Competition, for the purpose of “Building Minds and Breaking Stigmas”.
On a friday night in January in the Bayport-Blue Point High School Gymnasium with over 160 pounds of Lego building bricks and over thirty teams entered, Lego-loving creators and their families joined in the fun.
And to the kids, the fun is just that: fun, innocently unaware of the bonds and social safety net they are also building.
Each team had to create a tower, which needed to stand tall and not crumble when placed on an earthquake simulating plate. They had to create a car, which had to roll down a ramp and travel the longest distance. And last, they had to create a robot whose only real requirement was to be cool-looking.
Some teams took the team approach and worked on each item together, whereas some teams split the tasks and assigned each item to a different team member. Both approaches had valid benefits. Teams had ninety minutes to complete all three and could return to the numerous Lego bins as needed. Lego trivia and project interviews took place while the teams worked diligently on their creations. Parents were just as involved in the creation with their kids. We saw whole families doing the building, while some parents sat back and cheered their kids on. We saw a few adults whose love for Legos was quite apparent, kids not necessary, and it was all good.
The best parts: the conversation, the laughter, the dedication to the craft.
One family, Mary and Joe (pictured above) with their young children Elizabeth, nine, and Peter, seven, went on to win first place for the robot category but all agreed that spending time as a family was truly the real win for the night.
Another main focus of the foundation is to ensure that there are quality resources available, that people are connected to those resources when needed, and that more people can be aware of possible signs to look for to intervene when needed. Some topics are very difficult to discuss but they must be discussed and addressed, thoroughly, practically, and repeatedly.
Chris Coluccio, the host along with his wife Jenn (pictured below), and the emcee for the evening, subtly interjected their message into the evening’s event.
“You are not alone” – there are people in your life that you can talk to about anything and everything. Whatever you may be feeling, share it with someone.
Chris and Jenn created the foundation after tragedy struck their family resulting in the loss of their teenage son Christopher. They chose to channel their grief for good. They choose to call it “A Good Grief Foundation.”
To learn more about this foundation and the resources available go to ChristopherColuccio.org.
