The Great Snowstorm of 2010 could have been a nightmare for these Lakewood High School students. Instead, thanks to generous alumni like YOU, it turned into the experience of a lifetime!
LHS Social Studies teacher Joseph LoBozzo couldn’t believe his ears! The Grammy Museum had just telephoned to invite him and ten students to Washington, DC to participate in a program exploring Music and the Civil Rights Movement … at the White House! He had one week to accept an invitation to an event that was only a few weeks away — certainly not enough time to plan a fundraiser. And most of his students’ families were not in a financial position to cover the expense of travel. So he turned to the Lakewood Alumni Foundation.
Thanks to generous alumni and friends of the Lakewood City Schools like YOU, the Lakewood Alumni Foundation was in a position to help. Braving predictions of an impending blizzard, Mr. LoBozzo and his students boarded flights from Cleveland (a first-time experience for many of these teenagers) and traveled to Washington, DC where, together with students from across the country, they learned X from civil rights leaders and singers about the important impact music had on the Civil Rights Movement. Then, the snow really began to fall. And fall. And fall. Flights were cancelled, the entire capitol city was shut down, and our students were stranded.
What great luck! Because two nights later, PBS was taping “In Performance at The White House” and all the dignitaries who were supposed to attend were snowed out. Instead of watching the broadcast from home, these LHS students filled empty chairs in the East Room at the White House, seated beside the First Family, next to the Vice President and his wife, among cabinet members and staffers — listening to Bob Dylan and Joan Baez and Smokey Robinson and the Blind Boys of Alabama and other greats perform folk music from the ’60s.
Extraordinary.