LYNN — KIPP Academy has been chosen as the first educational institution to receive donations of the new card game Coyote on behalf of three Harvard Business School students.
Kang Huh, Eddie Alviso, and Garrett Apel attended a HBS class called “The Founder Mindset” this year. There, guest speaker and entrepreneur Tim Ferriss told the class about his goal to bring phone-free activities to kids and families. Ferriss had created Coyote and challenged the HBS class to find creative ways to get the game into kids’ hands.
Huh, Alviso, and Apel reinterpreted the assignment as a holiday mission. They decided to raise money, use the funds to buy the games, and then donate them to students, teachers, and various youth programs.
Huh, a former middle school math teacher, said that KIPP Academy is “well-known in the educational space.” He had met KIPP’s Director of Marketing and Communications Samantha Cooke last year during an HBS field trip, where she talked to him about the work the Lynn team does to prepare high school students for college and career readiness. Because of this, KIPP Academy was the first institution to come to mind when the HBS trio was looking for places to donate the game.
Coyote will now be in all of KIPP’s K-8 classrooms in Lynn. Cooke said this is highly beneficial for the students, especially in the colder months when outdoor recess often isn’t an option.
Cooke describes Coyote as not only a “fun and engaging” game, but as an activity that improves key cognitive skills such as memory, logical reasoning, and concentration.
“Its a nice opportunity for students to develop these skills in a more informal way. Any opportunity that gives students the chance to practice and refine these skills in and outside of the classroom is really amazing — especially for the younger years when the focus on early literacy is proving to be beneficial, and especially in this post COVID world where many students missed out on the opportunity to develop these skills in person,” Cooke said.
Cooke mentioned that “giving the students’ brains a break” with tools such as card games is “equally as important as time spent in the classroom learning curriculum.”
Alviso said, “It isn’t just mindless or idle fun. Not only does it get them off their phones so they can bond during the holidays, but there’s a classroom application to it. So we thought targeting the education realm was particularly impactful.”
Huh said, “We sometimes get so caught up in our assignments that sometimes we forget school can be for fun too.”
The HBS trio is currently fundraising to donate Coyote to schools, hospitals, and toy drives across the country. They were inspired by The Founder Mindset class’ motto: Commitment leads to magic.
Apel said, “We’ve done a lot to get people excited and involved on the fundraising side.”
Alviso said, “We want to keep the momentum going. This opportunity has really allowed us to reflect on the fact that small community impact is equally as important.”
Donations can be made to via GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-kang-and-eddies-mission-for-holiday-cheer.
