Donors help out two Lynn schools

LYNN – The Harrington Elementary School and Lynn Vocational and Technical Institute are extending their gratitude to donors this week after receiving hefty gifts of money and equipment from local philanthropists.Students in the LVTI machine shop received two much-needed donations from local alumni this month, totaling over $26,000 to put toward repairing machines and promoting the program at the school.The family of 1953 graduate Photios Photion made the first and largest of the two donations, offering up $25,000 for the program. Photion’s son, Mark Gelfand of Marblehead sent a letter to LVTI Director James Ridley recently announcing a gift in his father’s honor, and requested the funds be put toward promoting and improving the machine shop program at the school.Adding to the machine shop’s good fortune, LVTI alumnus and Machine Shop Advisory Board member Ronald Noel of Danvers has also come forward with financial support this month, offering to pay for much-needed repairs to the shop’s manual milling machines – totaling an estimated $1,500.”Mr. Gelfand made the donation in honor of his father. He wants us to use the money in any way we can to promote the machine shop and encourage more students to participate,” said Ridley. “Even though it is geared toward one shop, it is still something that we can use in that shop to improve things and generate more interest. The great thing about it is that there is no time limit as to when we can use it.”For Noel, the decision to pay for the repairs came from a recent meeting of the machine shop advisory council. According to a letter to Ridley, the advisory board approved the addition of a new CNC milling machine and a new CNC lathe for the shop, but the older manual machines were in dire need of repair. Because of the school’s limited budget, Noel decided to put up the money himself in order to give the students materials they need to become competitive in their field.Over at Harrington, Principal Michael Molnar is celebrating a new addition to the school’s technology department that has uses both in the classroom and for professional development.Thanks to a longstanding relationship between technology teacher Louis Denunzio and the state Social Security Administration, the organization has donated a used Sony rear-projection big-screen television and VCR to the school.The TV was once used for teleconferencing at the Social Security Administration, but technology upgrades at that organization made the equipment expendable. Rather than dispose of the old TV and VCR, the administration chose to donate it to education, earmarking the equipment for the Harrington School, which has a long history with the SSA.Originally designated as a professional development tool, Molnar said the TV was immediately put to use by teachers in the classroom as well to help with lessons about the recent presidential election and other computer-based activities.”The great thing about it is that even though it is absolutely huge (at over 40 inches) the TV is on wheels, so we can move it around easily,” said Molnar. “The teachers like it because since it was used for teleconferencing it is that much easier to hook up to a computer, and it is so big that everyone in the classroom can see it easily.”While the Harrington is already using its donated equipment, the School Committee must officially accept the donations before they can become official. The board is expected to approve the gifts at tonight’s regularly scheduled meeting beginning at 6:30 p.m. with an open public comment session.