Marblehead senior’s donation helps Ford School students

LYNN – Students in Lauren Sampson’s fifth-grade science class got up close and personal with roly poly bugs Tuesday via a digital microscope that allowed a roomful of students to peer through one lens at the same time.”It’s a really cool resource,” said CitySprouts Food Corps service member Alex Freedman. “Talking about things like roly polys was hard because they’re really small and you had to have one for each student, which was difficult. Now you only need one and you throw it up on the board ? it makes it really easy.”Principal Claire Crane said that two microscopes, which cost a little over $500 apiece, were a gift from a surprising resource: a 17-year-old Marblehead High School senior who fell in love with the school nearly eight years ago.”I just love the Ford School,” said Aaron Rothbard matter-of-factly.Rothbard was a fourth-grader at Cohen Hillel Academy when he was first introduced to the Highland’s area school. The two schools have a long standing connection that has academy fourth-graders paired with Ford School kindergartners as reading buddies and mentors. Older academy students tutor Ford students in math. Rothbard said he visited the school weekly from fourth grade through eighth.”But then I got to high school and the connection stopped,” he said.Rothbard said he liked tutoring because he loved math and he liked being thought of as the smart one, so he and his brother asked Crane if they could continue. Crane invited them to come Monday nights and tutor students preparing for private school exams. Before long, not only were the Rothbard brothers coming but they had five friends in tow.”One of the problems I saw was that the kids didn’t really even have materials to work with,” Rothbard said. “Sometimes they didn’t have pencils and the paper they had (was) already been written on.”Rothbard said he decided last winter he would do a fundraiser for the school, and since March was approaching he made it a March Madness event. He said he and his friends followed the single elimination National Collegiate Athletic Association basketball tournament each year and thought it would be fun to build a fundraiser around the event.Rothbard had participants submit a bracket for a price and he made the winning pot a 50/50, which meant that 50 percent of the money taken in went to the winner and 50 percent went to the Ford School, he said.”I made a little over $2,000,” he said.Initially he planned to use the money to buy supplies such as paper and pencils, but Crane urged him to put it toward a larger project because supplies would be used once and be gone.”I wanted them to get something they could use over again to explore,” he said.Rothbard said he was sorry he missed Freedman’s lesson, which was the first time the students got see the microscope in action.”I had a calculus test that I just couldn’t miss,” he said. “I’m hoping to go over next week for a lesson though.”He is also not done fundraising. Rothbard is already making plans for this year’s March Madness event. He said he has several friends who have offered to help as well so he expects to reach an even wider audience and, at the very least, double the amount of money raised.He is aware, however, that his connection to the school will come to an end soon.”I will go to college,” he said. “Time is the best way I can help, but I’m hoping to find a way to keep helping.”Chris Stevens can be reached at [email protected].